
Book "P^D^3 
GoipghtF 

COPYRrGHT DEPOSre 



The Eye 
Mind Energy and Matter 



The Eye 
Mind Energy and Matter 



BY 

CHALMERS PRENTICE, M. D. 



CHICAGO, ILLINOIS, U. S. A. 

PUBLISHED BY THE AUTHOR 
1905 



Two Copies rtoccfvfev! 

MAR 6 1905 

CLASS o^ AAc Mo; 

/ <^9 oo<g 
copy fcj. 






Copyright, 1905 

BY 

CHALMERS PRENTICE, M. D. 



R. X. DONNELLEY & SONS COMPANY 
CHICAGO 



CONTENTS 

Chapter Page 

Motto 7 

Fable - 9 

I Mind, the Master Architect - - 11 

II Energy^The Human Power-House - - 18 

III Brain Strain 25 

IV Open-Air Life— Evolution - - - - 33 
V General Treatment 46 

VI Nervousness Cause of Drink Habit - 52 

VII Consumption 61 

VIII Vision 71 

IX Eye Muscles and Nerve-Centers - 81 

X Causes of Disease ------ 85 

XI Latent Conditions 89 

XII Muscle Irregularities - - - - 93 

XIII Horizontalizing and Verticalizing - 96 

XIV Reversal of Method in Esophoria - loi 
XV ExoPHORiA - 115 

XVI Hyperphoria, Cataphoria, and Cyclo- 

PHORiA 123 

XVII Ametropia - 126 



IN THE UNION OF HEALTH ADJUNCTS, AND THE ABSENCE OF 
PESSIMISM, THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS INCURABLE DISEASE. 



A MAN HAD A HEAVY LOAD TO MOVE. IN HIS STABLE HE HAD 
THREE GOOD HORSES. FIRST HE HITCHED ''PHYSICAL CULTURE" 
TO THE LOAD. THIS POWERPUL HORSE PULLED AND TUGGED 
WITH ALL HIS MIGHT, BUI WAS UNABLE TO MOVE THE LOAD; 
THEREFORE HE WAS RETURNED TO THE STABLE. NEXT, "FAITH- 
CURE," OR "mental medicine," was GIVEN A TRIAL. HE EXHIB- 
ITED GREAT INTELLIGENCE, ABILITY, BUT SOMETHING WAS 
LACKING. HE ALSO FAILED, AND WAS RETURNED TO THE STABLE. 
THIRD, AND LAST, THE NEW HORSE, "CONSERVATION OF ENERGY," 
WEARING HIS BLINDERS, OR SPECTACLES, WAS GIVEN A TRIAL. 
HE CONCENTRATED AN ENORMOUS FUND OF ENERGY AND APPLIED 
IT TO THE LOAD, BUT HE FAILED, AND WAS LIKEWISE RETURNED 
TO THE STABLE. 

DURING THESE VARIOUS TRIALS, A COMPETITOR ACROSS THE 
STREET WOULD BRING OUT HIS HORSE, "PESSIMISM," AND HITCH 
HIM TO THE OPPOSITE END OF THE LOAD, URGING HIM TO PULL 
THE OTHER WAY. 

THE MAN HAD TRIED ALL THREE OF HIS BEST HORSES, WAS 
DISAPPOINTED, BECAME DISCOURAGED, AND SAID: "iT IS IM- 
POSSIBLE TO MOVE THIS LOAD." 

A PHILOSOPHER, RECOGNIZING THE SITUATION, SAID: "TRY ALL 
THREE HORSES AT THE SAME TIME." THE SUGGESTION WAS 
ACTED ON, AND THE LOAD MOVED OFF WITH GREAT EASE. 



CHAPTER I 

MIND, THE MASTER ARCHITECT 

In the early summer days, when the air is rich 
and redolent with the perfume of flowers and 
youthful vegetation, it is sweet to awaken in the 
young hours of morning, when all is perfect 
silence and the darkness of night still reigns. 
You listen — and listen — to — nothing. By and 
by comes to your ears the peep of a little bird. 
For a time all is silence — and again the little 
note breaks in as if it were a signal, for then the 
great chorus of little feathered musicians breaks 
the silence of night with the overture of morning. 

The great curtain begins to rise. The horizon 
takes on a faint gold and gray. Slowly its col- 
ors grow brighter and brighter, changing and 
blending with all the varied shades that only the 
sunburst of morning can give. During the period 
of this glorious spectacle the great sun comes 
up and sheds its beneficent rays over the world. 

The chasm between them was a deep one, with 
precipitous sides and yawning depths. His 
sweetheart said, '* Won't you come?*' 



1 2 THE EYE MIND ENERGY AND MA TTER 

He saw her form, he heard her voice. His body 
trembled for the leap, when a voice said, ''You 
have not the strength; you will be dashed and 
crushed on the rocks below. Think.*' 

Then he thought, how must it be, for be it 
mu^t, that they should meet? 

He thought, and thought, and thought, until 
the frenzied atmosphere grew clear. With 
energy he seized an ax, cut down a tree. It fell 
across the yawning space. His bridge was made. 
They met. 

Years ago some one thought, thought large 
and deep and well. This thought set energy to 
work, in the forests, the quarries, and the mines. 
Timber, stone, and iron were brought forth, and 
made the Brooklyn bridge. 

What is thought? Only we within ourselves 
really know that we think ; we do not know that 
others think. From their words and acts we 
infer that they think ; for if we were talking and 
acting thus, and thus, as they are, we know we 
should be thinking, and we infer our line of 
thought to them. 

The best evidence of soul and its function, 
thought, is within ourselves; all evidence outside 
is inferential. 

We are forced to strictly inferential lines of 



MIND, THE MASTER ARCHITECT 13 

evidence for all that lies beyond our personality. 
In fact, all rational beings insist on this infer- 
ential evidence as being good and our lives are 
governed by it. 

What would be the conclusion as to the san- 
ity of a person who said of a watch, '' I see that 
energy and matter were required to construct 
this watch, but chance has properly united the 
wheels"? Or what should we think of one who 
sees marble, stone, and iron, through the inter- 
vention of energy, being formed into a palace, 
and says, '* Energy and matter are the only 
factors in this structure that can be proved" ? Or 
who looks at a piece of delicate point lace and 
says, *' Energy and matter made those threads 
and threw them into their regular and intricate 
positions. It is a matter of chance, but that 
thought is there cannot be proven, because we 
cannot see the thought." 

A person with such judgment would be con- 
sidered foolish, ignorant of the higher sense, and 
totally unconscious of the laws of equity. We 
do prove that thought is there, with energy in all 
its work in matter. Both personal and inferential 
evidence declare it. Want of perception and 
higher sense are not evidence. 

First, best evidence. Without a single excep- 
tion, in all instances where we enlist energy and 



14 THE EYE MIND ENERGY AND MATTER 

matter to do from the least to the greatest thing, 
thought, conscious or subconscious, is always 
the dominating factor. Try as long and as 
often as you will, you cannot conceive of a single 
thing that we accomplish in which mind is not a 
factor. 

Second, or next best evidence. In reviewing 
the acts of our fellow-kind we insist that thought 
is always a factor, although our evidence is only 
inferential. 

When we go beyond our kind, into a realm 
where we are strangers, the necessity for infer- 
ential reasoning becomes absolutely imperative. 

We now point to a flower, with its color and 
perfume, whose architecture exceeds that of man; 
here, in this flower, energy is building matter into 
form ; now, when we insist on the three factors, 
mind, energy, and matter, in all of our near and 
sure evidence, by what license can we eliminate 
thought from this process of flower-building? 

Some looked upon matter as a condition of 
mind. Others considered energy a condition of 
matter. There were those who speculated on 
mind as a condition. 

Many of our modern and, we believe, better 
thinkers conceive mind, energy, and matter as 
three actual things, three proximate principles. 



MIND, THE MASTER ARCHITECT iS 

The latter view is correct ; for the rules ap- 
plied in common law we must in justice accord 
to the immutable law of the universe; now, in 
common law we eliminate all speculative evidence 
and confine our case to personal, or ** first, best 
evidence," under which we know that in what- 
ever we accomplish, mind, energy, and matter 
are always a trinity, therefore inseparable in the 
cosmic scheme. 

Can we conceive that mind exists without 
energy and matter? It would have nothing to 
obey its dictates and no experiences to record. 
The quality and quantity of mind, energy, and 
matter can be separately estimated, but of neces- 
sity by different methods. The soul cannot be 
weighed on hay scales, as materialists might insist 
upon, as a matter of proof. 

Matter has form and ponderability, and is 
weighed. 

Energy is measured by the foot-pounds that 
it can lift. 

Mind is measured by the result of its dictations. 

The aborigine thought small and built an 
adobe hut. The Grecian architect thought large 
and the Parthenon was made. 

In making, from a needle to an anchor, a 
snowball to a steamship, mind, energy, and mat- 
ter are always inseparable factors. 



1 6 THE EYE MIND ENERGY AND MA TTER 

Mind is the primal architect, the designer; it 
sets energy to work and constructs a bridge or a 
palace ; it also directs the work in its own body, 
our body, and builds up or tears down according 
to the state or quality of the mind. 

Thought cannot build a bridge without work- 
men and material, also labor and material are 
ever necessary adjuncts in building and sustain- 
ing this human castle in which the soul resides. 

All faith cures, from religion to the medical 
practitioner, are effected by the same power, the 
*' mind-states,** which are induced by various 
methods. 

This is all and just what Christ claimed when 
he said: **Thy faith hath made thee whole.** 

When the mind is working on the vigorous 
lines of faith, peace, and hope, the anatomical 
brain is sending out nerve force, in perfect order, 
that builds up and invigorates all parts of the 
body. 

The converse is just as true; weak mind con- 
ditions, such as fear, anger, and foolish forebod- 
ing, induce ill health and shorten life. 

It is unpleasant to contemplate how much evil 
the pessimist may do, or how many lives his 
poisonous words have shortened or destroyed. 
The higher his position the more potent his 
opinions for evil. ' 



MIND, THE MASTER ARCHITECT 17 

The pessimist is more dangerous than a veno- 
mous serpent. 

It matters not what the bodily conditions may 
be, if traditional ignorance, fear, and pessimism, 
which are disease-makers, be abandoned and the 
mind persistently, insistently, takes on a vigorous 
faith and hope, then a healthy nutrition takes 
place everywhere. 

A weak objective must never be permitted to 
suggest any controlling influence over the mind; 
it is the mind's province to control the weak ob- 
jective, by making it strong; the mind is easily 
cultured to ignore the influence of all except 
healthy objectives; this ''mind-state" in con- 
junction with the conservation of energy to do 
the work, and a proper dietary, accomplishes all 
things desirable. 

Thought is function of the soul. 

Whenever and wherever energy is at work with 
matter, mind is present. The Great Architect is 
always supervising His work; be it in the rolling 
billows or the morning mists, the tornado or the 
breath of spring, God is there, omnipresent 
throughout the limitless universe. 



CHAPTER II 

ENERGY— THE HUMAN POWER-HOUSE 

Mind, the master architect, engages energy 
to do its various kinds of work. It must always 
have workmen or its plans cannot be executed. 

The brain of man is a power-house in which 
there are many dynamos. Wires lead out from 
these dynamos to all parts and every organ of 
the body. The various organs and parts of the 
body are motors or engines that keep up their 
action by the energy they receive over the wires 
from the dynamos in the brain. The food we 
consume is a fuel which contains latent energy. 
Digestion prepares this fuel for admission into 
the blood. The blood carries it to the nerve 
centers, or dynamos, where much of it is finally 
burnt up, consumed, and the latent energy, 
which held the food together in its fuel form, is 
transformed into nerve energy, which is con- 
ducted by the nerves to every part of the 
** human plant*' — the body. 

It is quite proper to call the human body a 
plant, the brain a power-house, and the nerve 
centers dynamos ; for it is in the nerve centers, 

i8 



ENERGY— THE HUMAN POWER HOUSE 19 

as in an electric dynamo, that a transformation 
of energy takes place. It is here, in the human 
dynamos, that the form of energy known as 
nerve- force first makes its appearance. 

All known phenomena are due to energy, which 
has different forms of manifesting itself. Fuel 
has energy in a latent state. It is burnt in a fur- 
nace, and the energy that was latent becomes 
manifest by being transformed into heat and 
mechanical motion through a steam-engine. The 
dynamo transforms this mechanical motion into 
electricity; and as long as the medium is appro- 
priate, this energy continues to manifest itself as 
electricity. But when it passes on to a less per- 
fect conductor, like carbon, it takes on the wave 
length of light ; and, as long as the medium for 
light is appropriate, energy continues in the wave 
length of light, even through the period of thou- 
sands of years and the space of millions of miles. 
But, when the light comes in contact with 
another medium, a dark color, then the energy 
takes on the wave length of heat, and so on 
forever this energy continues to change its pace 
of travel and wave length in accordance with the 
character of the medium through which it passes. 

Energy is never annihilated or lost; it mani- 
fests itself in different wave lengths, such as elec- 
tricity, heat, light, magnetism,. nerve-force, etc. 



20 THE EYE MIND ENERGY AND MA TTER 

The medium and surrounding conditions deter- 
mine the form in which it manifests itself; and 
what is known as nerve-force, that performs all 
the functions of man, is one of these forms of 
energy manifestation. There are storage centers 
in the human plant called ganglia. Muscles also 
have energy stored in them ; but all such storage 
centers are dependent on the human power-house. 
Every process carried on in the human body 
requires a certain amount of energy. Every 
organ and minute part is an engine, in itself 
powerless to perform any function whatever, and 
as dead as an engine without steam or a motor 
without electricity. But when endowed with 
energy, each part does its work, performs its 
functions, the same as an engine, or motor, when 
properly energized. Every organ acts just as its 
energy-supply dictates. If the function of a 
part is normal, it is because the dominating 
energy supply is normal. If the function is 
weak or feeble, it is because the energy supply 
is feeble. Also, if the function is overdone or 
excited it is due to an over or excited energy 
supply. Disease is nothing but perverted func- 
tion, and is simply the expression of a perverted 
or abnormal energy supply. Critically, organic 
disease is a lesion due to long-continued func- 
tional disease. 



ENERGY— THE HUMAN POWER-HOUSE 21 

Nerve force has alterations similar to electric 
currents, viz. : high voltage and low amperage ; 
or low voltage and high amperage in disease, 
while a normal relation of voltage and amperage 
exists in health. 

We recently visited an electric plant having 
eight dynamos that supply energy for twelve 
elevators, twenty motors, three thousand lights, 
besides the lighting of two large theaters. The 
eight dynamos in this power-house are connected 
together, so that they furnish a common fund of 
energy. Several times the wires that conduct 
energy have become grounded, and then a large 
amount of the electricity leaked away to the 
earth. Under this condition the elevators were 
run and the theaters lighted ; but the dynamos 
were necessarily strained to their utmost capa- 
city, which rapidly wears and burns them out, 
thus making the ''brains'* of the plant of very 
short life. 

The dynamos in the human brain are also in- 
timately connected by conductors, so that, when 
an organ or part is called upon for excessive 
work, the dynamo that presides over this part 
furnishes the excess of energy needed by robbing 
all of the other dynamos of their energy, or 
working power. Thus all other parts of the 
body, for the time being, must suffer from the 



^2 THE EYE MIND ENERGY AND MA TTER 

lack of functioning power they are deprived of. 
So, in this way, an organ may be weak or defi- 
cient without it or its dynamo being at fault, 
simply because some other dynamo is taking its 
needed energy to supply some overtaxed func- 
tion. 

The occasional overtaxing of a function may 
not result in much observable injury to other 
parts; but through oft-repeated and continued 
experiences the excessive function becomes a 
habit, and more or less continuous in its excessive 
demands on the common energy-fund, continu- 
ously depriving other parts of a healthy function- 
ing power. Thus we can readily see that organs 
can be diseased without the cause being in them 
or their governing nerve centers. 

Of all organs in the body^ the eyes are most 
capable of demanding arid getting an excessive 
share of the general fund of nerve-energy from 
the huinan power-house, for the following reasons: 

I. The feeling of vision is the most acute of 
all the senses, because it is actively aroused by 
one of the most imponderable elements known 
to science — light. By the impact of its delicate 
waves our consciousness is made to feel shape, 
motion, and color. Its rays, reflected from vari- 
ous objects, pass through the cornea, the aqueous 
humor, the crystalline lens, the vitreous body, and 



ENERGY'-THE HUMAN POWER-HOUSE 25 

there reach the retinal nerves. The delicacy of 
this touch, or impact, on the retinal nerves is 
beyond the conception of the human mind ; yet it 
establishes from this point an impulse which is 
conveyed to the sight centers at the base of 
the brain, which with no uncertainty determine 
form, color, motion, quantity, and space. Here 
we have the most positive sense or feeling known 
to man, produced by the most imponderable 
agent known to science. 

2. This work of seeing, requiring energy, is 
kept up continuously for sixteen out of twenty- 
four hours or two-thirds of our entire life. 

3. The dynamos governing the function of 
vision are the largest in area of any in the human 
brain, and the most extensively distributed. 

4. The conductors from the dynamos to the 
eyes are very large, and capable of conducting 
much energy. 

5. The distance between the eyes and their 
dynamos is short, thus offering little resistance 
to the transit of energy. 

These are our reasons for claiming that perfect 
vision may exist under excessive anatomical 
defects. A patient says, **0h, there is nothing 
the matter with my eyes. I can see perfectly.*' 
He really means there is nothing wrong with his 
vision. A cashier robs a bank and becomes rich ; 



24 THE EYE MIND ENERGY AND MATTER 

he lives in princely fashion, but the depositors 
and stockholders suffer the loss of their funds. 
In some cases it is under the most perfect vision 
that the most destructive brain-strain exists, 
compared with which manifest visual defects and 
their consequences are trivial. 

The same identical foot-pounds of energy may 
be used in anger or utilized in a laugh, may be 
exhausted in hate or expended in love, accord- 
ing to the dictates of the mind. 



CHAPTER III 

BRAIN STRAIN 

In the long history of the past, glasses were 
resorted to for the purpose of correcting imper- 
fect vision only. More especially during the 
later years it has been observed that glasses now 
and again have relieved nervous disorders, and 
the more closely we have studied and observed 
the effects of properly adjusted spectacles in dis- 
ease, the more convinced we have grown that 
eye strain is the cause of many serious disorders, 
and that its correction will in a great measure 
relieve troubles that have heretofore baffled the 
skill of the medical profession. 

When evidence comes from here and there of 
the cure of diseases that have always been con- 
sidered fatal, it awakens, at first, incredulity, but 
if we are able to offer good and logical reasons 
why eye strain has such a powerful influence 
over the entire body, then we will be able to 
dispel this unbelief. 

All the work connected with the function of 
vision is done in the base of the brain. We do 
not see in the eye. It is simply a mechanical 

25 



26 THE EYE MIND ENERGY AND MA TTER 

instrument similar to a photographic camera fof 
focusing the rays of light on its posterior part, 
the retina. From here these delicate impres- 
sions are conveyed over nerve fibers to the gray 
matter cells lying in the outer part of the pos- 
terior portion of the brain. It is in the back of 
the brain that vision takes place, that the photo- 
graph is printed. This is the largest center in 
the entire nervous system. To this we must 
also add the centers that govern the movements 
and adjustment of the eye for far and near vision. 
The center that governs the focusing of the eye 
lies in the third ventricle ; the cells governing the 
converging of the eyes when they are being used 
for reading, sewing, writing, or any close occu- 
pation, are in the aqueduct of Sylvius, while those 
governing the external muscles that turn the eye 
outward are in the floor of the fourth ventricle of 
the brain, at its extreme base, at the top of the 
spinal column. 

Considering all of these centers that are con- 
cerned in vision, they occupy at least one- 
third of the gray matter area of the entire brain. 

The natural position of the eyes in a state of 
perfect rest is distant vision. As the eye ap- 
proaches closer and closer to an observed object, 
it is necessary to gradually increase its focus, 
which is done by work or strain in the gray mat- 



BRAIN STRAIN 27 

ter cells in the third ventricle. In approaching 
an object it is also necessary for the eyes to con- 
verge towards each other, that both may be fixed 
on the object simultaneously. This contraction 
of the internal muscles is effected by work or 
strain in the cells of the aqueduct of Sylvius. 
Sometimes the eyes are converged for a very 
near point and used for a long period in this posi- 
tion, as in sewing, reading, etc. Then they pull 
upon and establish a counter-strain in the exter- 
nal rectus muscles. 

In view of the location of these centers there 
must be a terrific strain in the base of the brain 
at all times during continued near vision. When 
the eyes are looking off into the distance, these 
strains are relieved. This is what gives the 
brain and nervous system so much rest in the 
out-of-door or open-air life. 

It is a normal and natural function to be able 
to exert these strains and use the eyes for near 
work, but it is unnatural and abnormal to exert 
these strains constantly, as is done in some indoor 
occupations. It acts as a constant overdraft on 
life's fund of energy, and detracts from the 
functioning power of all other parts of the body. 

Since women have abandoned their close in- 
door work and have taken up outdoor life and 
field sports they are fast rising nearer and nearer 



28 THE EYE MIND ENERGY AND MA TTER 

to the physical basis of men, and men who aban- 
don their out-of-door lives for indoor callings and 
close occupations are becoming enfeebled and are 
breaking down. 

It is easy to see how these strains, continued 
from day to day, may irritate, disturb, and de- 
prave other nerve centers that preside over the 
various functions of the body; and naturally 
when anatomical defects exist these strains and 
their evil consequences are much greater. 

It has long been a well-known fact that irrita- 
tion of the fourth ventricle of the brain induces 
diabetes. 

Some of the functions of the liver receive 
their motive force from the floor of the fourth 
ventricle, as also do the external rectus muscles 
of the eye. Now, when there is a strain in these 
eye muscles inducing irritation in their fourth 
ventricle cells it is only reasonable to suppose 
that this irritation will be communicated to the 
adjacent cells governing other functions, the kid- 
ney, liver, lungs, heart, stomach, etc. 

We have been wont in the past to use the 
word reflex to account for certain diseases in 
distant parts of the body originating from eye 
strain and other local points of irritation, but 
when we view these disorders from the nerve 
centers we have a better understanding of how 



BRAIN STRAIN 29 

one diseased condition of the body may arise 
from another. 

From the most minute cells to the largest 
organs of a healthy body every part has a place 
in the general economy, and a function to per- 
form. Each part is a motor or anatomical 
engine, which is set in motion, or whose func- 
tion begins, when they receive their working 
power, and ceases when that working power is 
withdrawn. Any alteration from the normal 
nerve currents will relatively disturb and alter 
the function of a part. 

Disease is not an entity, a thing, a something 
that, ghost-like, walks around and crawls into 
people. // is simply perverted function. The 
energy supply is too much or too little, the 
voltage too high or too low, as it may also be 
with the amperage in the energy supply. Cer- 
tain symptoms of perverted function are called 
diabetes, others Bright's, others consumption, 
and so on through a long list of pathology. 

A long-continued diverted function physically 
alters and changes parts until organic disease is 
the result. Natural secretions of organs are put 
in check and abnormal secretions ensue, such as 
uric acid and other poisonous secretions. Ex- 
treme nervous excitement has been the cause of 



) 



30 THE EYE MIND ENERGY AND MA TTER 

poisonous secretions in the milk of mothers nurs- 
ing infants. 

Therefore, when the great central nervous sys- 
tem is irritated and robbed of its power, by 
excessive eye strain, it is impossible to say what 
part of the body may be made to suffer, and 
it is also impossible to determine what relief will 
naturally follow a correction of these visual de- 
fects. 

One of the principal effects sought with glasses 
is to check the waste or loss of energy from use- 
less brain strain, this energy being needed for 
functioning other parts of the body. 

We have often thought, and are now con- 
vinced, that if there is a place where the conser- 
vation of energy is of greatest value, it is in the 
sick-room, when vitality is low and the various 
functions of the body are crying out for their 
lost functioning power. 

Our clinical experience with glasses in the sick- 
room has been very encouraging. In many in- 
stances where there was a fevered condition, 
high temperature, and abnormal heart action, 
which belongs to various diseases, we have 
used medium fogs with a small amount of prism 
base in, and in all cases there has been a lower- 
ing of the temperature, a bettering of the heart 
action, and a more cheerful condition induced. 



BRAIN STRAIN 3^ 

We have suggested the use of glasses for this 
purpose to several advocates of repression who 
are general practitioners, and their experience 
has been such as to make them exceedingly en- 
thusiastic. We quote from a report by one of 
these medical gentlemen, who, after citing a 
number of successful cases, says: 

*' Life is so interesting nowadays that young 
and old are tempted, even when confined by ill- 
ness, to use their eyes for close vision every 
waking hour, thus permitting the eyes to con- 
sume far more than their share of energy. 

** I have found repression, in conjunction with 
other methods of treatment, to be of great value, 
not only in my office practice, but at the bedside 
as well.'* 

Only the long-confined invalid can appreciate 
the glow, the cheer, and happiness that pervades 
the whole being when he is first wheeled in his 
invalid chair to the window, where he looks off 
at the sky, clouds, and distant objects. This 
thrill of pleasure is almost instantaneous, and as 
the practice is continued, strength grows until 
the patient is able to take out-of-door exercise, 
which usually results in still further advancing 
health. 

The reason why looking off into the distance 
brings relief, and acts as a tonic to the entire 



32 THE EYE MIND ENERGY AND MA TTER 

system, is because the brainwork of focusing 
and converging is for the time being abandoned. 

This relief of brain strain by constant out-of- 
door life is one of the chief factors in curing con- 
sumption and other diseases. 

As a last resort, after we have expended all 
efforts to relieve an invalid, we advise them to 
take a change of air, a change of scene, an ocean 
voyage, quit reading, and live out of doors as 
much as possible, when usually an improve- 
ment in health sets in. Under all of these con- 
ditions there is long range of vision, a cessation 
of the focusing and converging strain. This re- 
laxation of brain strain in open-air life is one of 
the chief factors in inducing health, whereas 
heretofore it has been solely attributed to fresh 
air. Therefore, poor people unable to make ex- 
pensive trips, if they will persistently and reg- 
ularly resort to open-air life at home, will de- 
rive vast benefits. 

*' Repression" is forced reversal of strain with 
spherical glasses and prisms. For latent hyper- 
opia an over-correction is worn, which temporarily 
**fogs" the vision, hence the name *'fogs*' ; first, 
shutting out the laborious work of delicate de- 
tail; second, stimulating a cessation of strain 
through the ciliary muscles. In esophoria prism 
base in causes forced abatement of spasm, etc. 



CHAPTER IV 

OPEN-AIR LIFE— EVOLUTION 

We are living in a swift civilization, we are 
following callings and pursuits widely different 
from those of our near ancestors ; and our vari- 
ous systems and organs have not had time to 
evolve to those changes which are necessary to 
cope with our present requirements without 
undergoing great discomforts and seriously cur- 
tailing our lives. 

Often our health and much of our lives are 
sacrificed to an improper use of vision. It may 
seem extravagant to attribute so much to the 
eyes; but it is the province of these chapters to 
show that it is a fact. 

Pulmonary consumption was once looked upon 
as an incurable disease, but now it is a well- 
known fact that many cases get well by simply 
living out of doors. All diseases and serious 
nervous conditions are equally benefited by an 
open-air life. The benefits derived by invalids 
from living in the open air have usually been 
attributed to the freshness and purity of the air; 
but one of the chief curative factors of the open- 

33 



34 THE EYE MIND ENERGY AND MA TTER 

air treatment is the relief of brain-strain due to a 
longer range of vision. 

It is a matter of history that King George III. 
of England was afflicted with a nervous disease 
amounting to serious mental derangement. His 
court physicians called in consultation the most 
noted London specialists, but the king's malady 
continued to increase to the extent that the 
queen was obliged to remove to other apart- 
ments. Later the king was taken to the castle 
at Kew Gardens; but his condition here continued 
to grow worse, until Dr. Willis and son of Lin- 
colnshire were called to take professional charge 
of the king. At once they took the king out of 
doors, and walked with him in the beautiful 
country gardens. This practice was continued 
daily until the king was well. 

Fanny Burney notes in her *' Memoirs,** De- 
cember II: ''To-day we had the fairest hopes. 
The king took his first walk in Kew Gardens." 
Then a discord raged in the medical council, 
when Dr. Warren pronounced the king to be 
worse than he had been at Windsor. Dr. Willis 
was denounced as an empiric ; but yet the king 
recovered under the care of Dr. Willis. March 
14: ''The king, I have seen him again. He 
smiled at my start, saying he had wanted to see 
me, and added, * I am quite well now; I was 



OPEN-AIR LIFE'-EVOLUTION 35 

nearly so when I saw you before in the Gar- 
dens.' '* The *' Memoirs*' also state, March 14: 
*'A11 Windsor came out to meet the king. 
It was a joy mounting to ecstasy.'* We 
attribute the relief in this and similar cases to 
a lessening of brain-strain due chiefly to a long 
range of vision. 

If you are tired and nervous, go to the win- 
dow, and for a few minutes look ofl into the far 
distance. At the same time take note of the 
soothing, calming feeling that comes over your 
entire being. Then turn again to doing some- 
thing that requires a close range of vision, and at 
once the nervousness will return. This is a 
simple, easy thing to do, and will afford you 
much valuable information. 

Business men, when tired, often close their 
eyes for a moment, as they have learned by intu- 
ition that it rests the entire system. The reason 
why closing the eyes has such a calming effect 
is because one-third of the brain is for the time 
being shut off from work. The colored-glass 
treatment for nervous diseases, which had quite 
a following a few years ago, undoubtedly had 
some merit in it on account of softening and 
tempering the light, thus in a degree resting a 
large portion of the brain. 

People living in bright, sunny countries are 



36 THE EYE MIND ENERGY AND MA TTER 

irritable and have nervous temperaments, due to 
strong light. Persons living in foggy countries 
have calm, quiet nervous systems. Many phy- 
sicians advise their nervous patients to go to 
foggy atmospheres. 

The above are a few evidences that overwork 
of the sight centers in the brain has a great 
influence in wrecking health. 

Many students sacrifice their health and lives 
in attaining an education, because of the brain- 
strain sustained by the close use of the eyes. 
All occupation requiring a close use of the eyes 
tends to break down health. 

With our present knowledge most of these 
evils can be avoided. 

Many students with really superior minds are 
considered dull because they fail to memorize or 
remember what they read in their text-books. 
The reason is that they are afflicted with such 
great eye-strain that it requires nearly all of the 
nerve-force they possess to fix the eye upon the 
book, and there is not sufficient left for the pro- 
cess of ideation and thought. Such students are 
forced to learn exclusively through the medium 
of hearing. 

The wide difference as to health in and out of 
doors is well illustrated by calling to attention 
the farm women of Flanders, the fish-wives of 



OPEN-AIR LIFE— EVOLUTION 37 

Leith, and slave women who work on planta- 
tions. They are all as hardy and muscular as 
men. 

Now for a moment let us look at the converse 
side. Strong, muscular men leave their country 
life and take up office callings in cities, where a 
close range of vision is required, inducing an ever- 
increasing brain-strain from which our most use- 
ful and prominent men are constantly falling 
victims to heart-failure and apoplexy. 

The eyes of man and the brain-centers that 
do their work were built up for, and originally 
adapted to, out-of-door use, and when they are 
required to do near work constantly, say thirteen 
inches, then a strain takes place deep in the mid- 
dle of the brain to sustain the near focus and 
convergence of the eyes. 

It IS the author's belief that the differences of 
physical conditions between man and woman are 
due to the fact that woman spends her life in- 
doors, doing things that require close vision, 
whereas the lives of men are usually taken up by 
callings that afford a longer range of sight, and 
that, if man were to take up woman's work, and 
women the work of men, but a few generations 
would pass before men would be the weaker and 
women the stronger sex. 

For the past twenty-five years oculists have 



38 THE EYE MIND ENERGY AND MA TTER 

been advocating the fact that eye-strain may be 
the cause of headaches, nervousness, and many 
functional diseases ; but the author believes him- 
self to be the first to attribute the effects of 
** open-air life'* to natural relief of eye-strain 
and its attendant disorders. 

A natural query would be, ** What class of dis- 
eases are due to eye-strain, and can be relieved 
by removing the cause?" A general answer best 
meets this question. All diseases are empha- 
sized or made worse by anything that irritates 
and depletes the nervous system ; and, naturally, 
any disease will be more or less relieved by cor- 
recting nerve-strain. 

There is a remedy for those whose occupations 
are such that they cannot take advantage of 
open-air life, but are forced to continue at a close 
range of vision, which is to aid the vision so that 
when it is being used at a near point the eyes 
have about the same adjustment as they would 
in looking over the open country, and conse- 
quently the brain would be as free from strain. 

The above statements are undoubtedly start- 
ling, and a good reason ought to be given why 
such radical effects on the general system are to 
be attained through the medium of vision. The 
principal reason is this: more than one- third of 



OPEN-AIR LIFE-DEVOLUTION 39 

the gray matter of the brain is utilized to per- 
form the functions of the eyes. 

This vast and sensitive area of the brain is 
under the command of the modern oculist. So 
by the aid of glasses, through the eye, he can 
influence and curtail the work in these large brain 
centers; and, as all nerve centers are connected 
by association fibers, it can be seen that nerve 
centers governing other parts of the body would 
be influenced. 

The eyes of herbivorous animals generally look 
outward from each other. A large proportion of 
such animals are unable to look at an object with 
both eyes at the same time, because the lines of 
vision diverge from each other. In some birds 
the eyes are so situated that they look in oppo- 
site directions, or nearly so. Birds and beasts 
with such divergent eyes present the side of the 
head to an object to get the best view of it ; also 
they are of a milder disposition, with small means 
of self-defense except their wide range of vision, 
which gives them timely warning of approaching 
danger. The eyes of carnivorous animals are in 
such a relative position that the * Mines of sight" 
are not nearly so divergent as they are in the 
herbivora; their relation is such that by a con- 
traction of the internal rectus muscles they are 
rotated inward, so that both eyes can center their 



40 THE EYE MIND ENERGY AND MA TTER 

vision on a single point at th^ same time, thus 
increasing the impact and sense of vision in the 
nerve centers. This class of animals have ner- 
vous, irritable, and sometimes vicious disposi- 
tions; they kill and live upon their prey. Their 
field of vision is not so extensive as that of herbiv- 
orous animals, but this deficiency is made up 
for by their exceeding activity and physical com- 
bative powers. The eyes of animals having 
single binocular vision have a tendency to diverge 
and are only held in visual alignment by a con- 
traction of the internal rectus muscles. For many 
years past we have frequently observed the eyes 
of lions, tigers, and other carnivorous animals as 
they lay half-asleep on dull, lazy days, languidly 
closing and opening their eyes. As the eyes 
opened we were able to observe a slight, quick, 
converging movement, small but perceptible in a 
majority of cases, especially in the older and 
lazier beasts. After death there is a considerable 
divergence of the eyes in all such animals. 

In the summer of 1895 we opened an inquiry 
with ten zoological gardens and animal-keepers, 
whose observations verified the above statements 
in main particulars. 

In 1893, with the assistance of the United 
States Army, Department of the West, we secured 



OPEN-AIR LIFE-EVOLUTION 41 

examinations of one thousand North American 
Indians. The test consisted of a prism, base 
down, before one of the eyes, creating vertical 
diplopia. There was a general tendency of the 
eyes to diverge. A similar examination of eight 
hundred uncivilized African negroes showed the 
same tendency. In making the above examina- 
tion of eighteen hundred aboriginals, three cases 
of convergent strabismus were met with among 
the Africans. When we reach men of civilization 
this general tendency to diverge seems to have 
changed into a tendency to converge ; this is not 
due to anatomical shortness of the internal 
muscles, but to a tonic, fixed spasm, or innerva- 
tion of them. It is a functional convergence 
which in death or blindness changes into a diver- 
gent condition. 

Those following the various pursuits of civili- 
zation a great share of the time have their eyes 
fixed on near objects, for illustration say thir- 
teen inches or three dioptres. The refraction of 
the crystalline lens has to be increased for thir- 
teen inches, and the eyes converged many 
degrees, which is accomplished by the excessive 
use of nerve-strain. In various pursuits these 
positions and strains are kept up day after day 
for months and years, until the strain or nerve 
impulses will not easily or completely suspend 



42 THE EYE MIND ENERGY AND MA TTER 

themselves when the person seeks for distant 
vision, and then we have a tending inward of 
the eyes and sometimes myopia. When we 
think of it we can see what excessive brain- 
strains such persons are relieved of by change 
of scene into the open country. The strains 
which keep up many degrees of convergence 
and about thirteen inches of refraction are for the 
time being relaxed, and thus the nerve-centers 
are much relieved. This factor of relief to ner- 
vous persons is fully equal to that of fresh air. 

These deep brain-strains acquired by the con- 
stant close use of vision become more or less 
fixed and hold the eyes in certain abnormal posi- 
tions of adjustment, so that when a test is made 
we may find that eyes tend to converge toward 
each other, but such a test does not inform us 
whether the convergence is due to a short internal 
rectus muscle or a tonic spasm. And cognately 
the ciliary muscle that focuses the lens may have 
a fixed spasm in it so that when glasses are fitted 
during these conditions of spasm they may pro- 
duce perfect vision, but they will tend to per- 
petuate the spasm of the ciliary muscle and 
perhaps increase it, thus adding materially to the 
deep brain-strain. 

Mechanical glass- fitting, according to the ac- 
cepted methods of the day, is responsible for 



OPEN-AIR LIFE-EVOLUTION 43 

many serious conditions to the eyes and nervous 
system. Glasses that bring about perfect vision 
may be exceedingly injurious. The physiologi- 
cal aspect of vision should always be carefully 
studied in adjusting glasses for sight. .When 
eyes have a tendency to turn inward toward each 
other, esopkortay it is always due to spasm and 
not to short internal muscles, for the following 
reasons : 

Our old manifest diffusion tests fail to show 
the anatomical defects that necessitate brain- 
strain to bring about good vision, for two reasons: 
first, nerve impulses that have been kept up for 
years become persistent and will not suspend dur- 
ing the tests; secondly, the various muscles and 
parts become more firmly fixed in their assumed 
shapes by the material deposits under the nutri- 
tion of the high innervation and their shapes 
and positions are statically fixed for the time 
being. 

The eyes of new-born babes are hyperopia^ defi- 
cient in magnifying power; they lack refractive 
power, while the optic axes are seldom if ever 
straight. The eyes of these little ones give us 
no accurate data of the relative anatomical 
lengths of the eye muscles or the amount of 
insufficient magnifying power of the eyes, for 
the reason that the impulses of energy which 



44 THE EYE MIND ENERGY AND MA TTER 

correct these anatomical defects are inherited 
and at work before birth, so that without ever 
having seen the light of day these little ones 
enter the world with eye-strain of various degrees. 
An observation of many years, which we think 
will be concurred in generally, leads us to the 
conclusion that when eyes once straight go blind 
they turn outward. 

Eyes lose their proper axial relation under vari- 
ous states of insensibility. Some twelve years 
ago it occurred to us that the eyes of the dead 
would come nearer showing the true anatomical 
condition, but not absolutely, owing to the 
material deposits just mentioned, so we insti- 
tuted an investigation of the eyes of the dead in 
morgues, deadhouses, and other places. We 
have thus obtained a record of over three thou- 
sand cases. In from twenty-four to forty-eight 
hours after death the eyes turn outward from 
each other almost without exception. Some- 
times one eye turns up more than the other; 
again, both eyes may turn upward and outward. 

We have- not in any single case seen eyes in the 
dead which appeared to us to be perfectly straight. 

The above facts lead us to the conclusion that 
the eyes of man are in a state of evolution as yet 
incomplete. We are positive that the evolution 
of the human eye is not complete for the pur- 



OPEN-AIR LIFE-EVOLUTION 45 

poses of the present civilization without artificial 
aid. 

A common question is: "Why did not God 
make our eyes perfect?*' He did make them 
more perfect than they are, but He did not invent 
the present, so-called, civilization. 



CHAPTER V 

GENERAL TREATMENT 

Throughout all ages of intelligent man there 
has existed a desire for health and a laborious 
search has been kept up for methods and reme- 
dies that induce it. 

Among the various and many schools one and 
the same end is sought, namely, to restore to its 
normal function any part in which a disturbed 
condition exists, where the nerve-force or motive 
power is doing erratic or abnormal work. 

All of these various methods, each possessing 
more or less value, may be classed under three 
heads : 

First, psychic medicine, which includes all of 
those healing sects that seek for relief by indu- 
cing desirable mind conditions, such as faith, 
hope, and positive assurance of good conditions 
to come. This psychic medicine enters more or 
less into all methods of cure, for there is always a 
certain amount of faith in trying any remedy, 
and more or less belief in it. Beyond question, 
psychic medicine or faith cure is a most valuable 
adjunct of health, and always necessary to suc- 

46 



GENERAL TREATMENT 47 

cess. It would be unjust not to credit to it 
many wonderful results. 

Second, the accu7nulation and conservation of 
energy^ in which the effort is to build up weak- 
ened parts by furnishing them with a fund of 
energy, through the use of proper foods and 
remedies, and by conserving all waste energy. 
There is no question of the absolute necessity of 
energy to do the work and perform all of the 
healthy functions of the human economy. It is 
the only principle through which mental condi- 
tions can succeed in achieving their end. 

Thud J physical medicine y including all that class 
of remedies acting as stimulants, such as hydrop- 
athy, massage (the lazy man's exercise), physical 
culture, Swedish and mechanical movements, 
electricity in all its forms, and out-of-door exer- 
cise. All of these remedies tend to call energy 
into parts whose disturbed functions have been 
deficient in nerve or functioning force. This 
form of treatment is of great and indispensable 
value. To be successful in any physical treat- 
ment, however, it is a necessity for the patient 
to have a sufficient fund of energy to respond to 
these various calls for it. 

The above three principles are at all times 
natural adjuncts to each other, and when sepa- 
rately employed in a commercial contention one 



48 THE EYE MIND ENERGY AND MA TTER 

With another they lose their highest values and 
are fads. 

No matter how valuable any one agent or ad- 
junct of health may be, it is a fad when employed 
alone. Its full value dawns only when it is scien- 
tifically united with all other health adjuncts. 

Too frequently some sufferer has tried all these 
adjuncts separately, and has failed to be rewarded 
with the sought for results, while the result might 
have been happily different had the three natural 
adjuncts been united in the necessary systematic 
way. From a lack of system much has remained 
hidden, and there is undoubtedly greater value 
in all of these adjuncts than has ever been 
brought out. 

One or two illustrations will suffice to show 
the necessity of uniting all these natural adjuncts 
of health, and the folly of attempting to employ 
them separately. 

For instance, in the electric or X-ray treat- 
ment, it is sought by stimulation to bring nerve- 
force into a weak part and rehabilitate its lost 
normal nutrition. In these various endeavors to 
restore the normal functioning power, there is 
no thought given as to whether there is suf- 
ficient energy to respond to this call for it. 
Some individuals have a sufficient fund of energy 
in the power-house. It responds, goes to the 



GENERAL TREATMENT 49 

stimulated part, and the patient gets well. In 
others there is a deficiency of energy, due to its 
vast leakage through the visual nerve centers, 
which are the largest, or perhaps some other 
centers of the nervous system. Through neg- 
lecting such conservation of energy such patients 
fail to get well. This does not lessen the value 
of X-ray or other physical methods, but if more 
care be given to the conservation of energy it 
increases their values and makes them more 
prominent in good results. 

To massage a patient or seat him before an 
X-ray machine and expect stimulating action to 
bring nerve-force and vigorous nutrition, without 
first ascertaining if the power-house has the 
energy to spare, is almost equivalent to trying 
X-rays on an inanimate body. 

A well-known author says: 'Certain individu- 
als develop a decided reaction after the first treat- 
ment, whereas others resist the action of the 
rays to such a degree that it is only after from 
one to two months of daily treatment that we 
are able to develop a reaction. In one case 
daily treatments have been given for over two 
years, and although the tube has been placed 
very near the body, nothing more than a slight 
redness has developed. It is evident from this 
that an idiosyncrasy must exist.** 



so THE EYE MIND ENERGY AND MATTER 

*' Idiosyncrasy" is a delightful word, but it 
means nothing and explains nothing. The fact 
is that, in cases of failure, a draft was being 
drawn on the human power-house and there was 
no deposit of energy there. 

Never draw a check on a bank in which you 
have no deposit. One who indiscriminately draws 
checks on banks in which he has no funds is 
justly regarded as a criminal. 

The possibility of conserving energy by the 
use of ** repression" glasses is greater than by 
any other means, on account of the sensitiveness 
and vast area of the sight centers in the brain. 
Through the visual centers hundreds of thou- 
sands of foot-pounds of energy can be conserved 
daily, sent by the mind, and called by physical 
treatment into parts that are in need of it, thus 
restoring vigor. 

Even when eye-strain is not the primary cause 
of disease the disturbed nerve centers can be 
controlled and energy conserved through the 
visual centers, by '* repression." 

The false idea of the incurability of disease 
had its origin much in the same way as the erro- 
neous idea of the boy who, failing to do his 
sums in arithmetic, decided that mathematics 
was a failure. So the members of the medical 
profession, in their weak erudition, assuming that 



GENERAL TREATMENT 51 

they possessed all that could ever be known of 
health methods, decided that certain diseases 
were incurable because, in their unenlightened 
state, they failed to cure them. 

This erroneous idea of incurability has acted, 
in the cases of many thousands of patients 
afHicted with the diseases thus classed among the 
incurable, as a strong dose of psychic poison, not 
only retarding recovery, but often absolutely 
preventing it. 

Now we can say : In the union of health ad- 
juncts, and the absence of pessimism^ there is no 
such thing as incurable disease. 



CHAPTER VI 

NERVOUSNESS CAUSE OF DRINK HABIT 

The drink habit would be a serious evil if the 
misery and suffering occasioned by it were con- 
fined to the drinker, but those who suffer from it 
most are the unoffending ones. 

The strong appetite for drink is distinctly a 
nervous disease, in which liquor is resorted to as 
a relief for the nervous distress. The relief thus 
induced is only temporary, of short duration, 
the more permanent effect being to emphasize 
the nervous disorder. 

If this nervous condition can be better and 
more permanently relieved by other means, the 
appetite for liquor at once ceases ; and it can be 
and is relieved in the most extreme cases. 

Psychic influence is a strong and necessary fac- 
tor. It is not difficult to convince the intelligent 
that it IS easier to stop drinking than it is to con- 
tinue it. Avoid all pessimism on this point of 
view, whether from personal acquaintances or 
the columns of the press; but if you do hear or 
read this ''mental poison," innocently and care- 
lessly administered, antidote it at once by saying 

52 



NERVOUSNESS CAUSE OF DRINK HABIT S3 

to yourself, **I am sorry for your mind with its 
weak, thoughtless opinions; it is easier 7tot to 
drink.** It is necessary in this, as well as every 
other nervous manifestation, that the mind have 
energy to obey its orders, to do the work it lays 
out. 

The universal experience of drinking men is, 
that immediately after eating a wholesome and 
hearty meal the appetite for drink vanishes for a 
time. This leads us to the conclusion that the 
craving for drink is a misinterpretation of a 
strong appetite for food, which should be re- 
sorted to as frequently as the desire returns, 
thus furnishing a good supply of energy and 
building material. 

Out-of-door exercise, vigorous manual labor, 
and cold shower or plunge baths stimulate a dis- 
tribution of this energy and building material 
into all parts of the body, where it restores 
vigorous normal functions. 

Next, to obtain the most positive and imme- 
diate relief we must subdue all brain irritation 
and conserve wasting energy with '* repression*' 
glasses, which act on the largest gray-matter 
area of the brain, the visual centers. 

The action of repression'* glasses in subduing 
the irritability and appetite is immediate. We 
have repeatedly seen people addicted to the 



54 THE EYE MIND ENERGY AND MA TTER 

habit of taking thirty or forty strong drinks 
daily cut off liquor at once without the least 
inconvenience or the least restraint being ex- 
ercised over them. 

There is no trouble about it ; the nervous irri- 
tability being subdued, there is no longer any 
desire for the pseudo-remedy, drink. Often a 
repulsion, an abhorrence of liquor ensues. 

During his lifetime v/e had the pleasure of 
knowing Dr. Leslie E. Keeley, and had several 
interesting conversations with him on the subject 
of alcoholism. He believed it to be due to 
brain irritation, or classed it as a nervous dis- 
ease. In our opinion he was undoubtedly cor- 
rect. We know that a large majority of cases 
of drink habit take their origin from nervous 
irritation resulting from eye strain. Dr. Keeley's 
early treatment consisted of injecting into the 
circulation a remedy, probably atropine or some 
of its congeners, that caused the dilation of the 
pupil of the eye, the loss of accommodation, and 
inability to read during the time of treatment. 

This led us to believe that eye defects and irri- 
tation of the sight centers of the brain had much 
to do with inducing the liquor habit. 

Careful investigation on these lines verified 
our conclusions. We found, by setting the 
visual nerve centers at rest with '^repression" 



NERVOUSNESS CA USE OF DRINK HABIT 55 

glasses, that better and more permanent results 
were obtained. 

These facts were first made public in an ad- 
dress at Milwaukee on the 2d of August, 1904. 
The greatest interest in this subject was at once 
manifested by the press over the entire world, but 
in its enthusiasm it failed to note the revolution in 
optics, the reversal of the old methods of treat- 
ment, especially in cases of esophoria and latent 
hypermetropia. It is this publicity which has 
stimulated us to make extended comment on 
this phase of nervous disorder. 

The excessive use of tobacco in any of its 
forms can be classed with that of liquor as indu-. 
cing and emphasizing nervous disorder, as it acts 
upon, stimulates, irritates, and ultimately de- 
presses the same nerve-centers. An extended 
observation seems to show that those persons 
most broken by the drink habit are also users of 
tobacco in some of its forms to an excessive ex- 
tent, thus doubling the deleterious effects upon 
the system. In some cases, under the treatment 
here outlined, both habits are abandoned with 
greater facility than one, as each acts in a great 
measure as a link to the other. 

Extreme cases must frequently be cited to 
show physiological action, as the milder and in- 



56 THE EYE MIND ENERGY AND MA TTER 

termediate effects are not a sufficient proof to 
the minds of some. One such case is that of a 
soldier in the United States army, whose case 
was presented to us by his commanding officer. 
He had been an excessive chewer and smoker of 
tobacco for many years, and when observed, 
the cumulative effect on his nerve-centers had 
been so great that a chew of strong tobacco 
would in fifteen minutes throw him into a deli- 
rium, during which he would shout, sing, jump, 
and dance until he fell exhausted. At the time 
of observation of the case, he so dreaded the 
effects of tobacco that he avoided its use, unless 
urged by some of his comrades to take it, or for 
experimental ends. This is cited simply as the 
most extreme effect we have ever observed. 

In many other cases the patient has been 
warned against the use of tobacco by an extreme 
disturbance of the heart's action, stomach dis- 
tress, and a peculiar disagreeable numbness per- 
vading the entire body to its extremities, almost 
immediately upon the tobacco being resorted to. 
An intelligent observation of these warnings on 
the part of the patient has resulted in saving 
some lives from the poisonous effects of the ex- 
cessive use of tobacco. In these cases the time 
arrives when the cumulative disturbance of the 
nerve-centers is so great that it ceases to require 



NERVOUSNESS CA USE OF DRINK HABIT 57 

any great quantity of tobacco to cause immedi- 
ate distress. The slightest bit of it is sufficient 
in extreme cases. ' 

The importance of the subject is our excuse 
for making impersonal reference to a few out of 
several hundred cases of drink habit. 

In the summer of 1904 a professional man was 
discussing this subject with us, he being very 
skeptical. He was addicted to thirty or forty 
strong drinks daily, and acknowledged himself 
weak and helpless, but expressed his willing- 
ness to try fogging and prisms, although he said 
he had no faith in the method. He put on 
'* repression** glasses and wore them faithfully. 
At the end of a week we met him. His first 
remark was: ** Doctor, it is marvelous. My 
appetite for drink left me at once, and I have 
not since had a desire for it.*' A few days 
later the patient overworked one Saturday night, 
took off his glasses during a period of four hours 
for close work, and before returning home that 
night had again filled up with twenty or thirty 
drinks. The following morning he returned to 
the glasses, which again relieved him. This 
incident induced him to believe more strongly 
than ever in the efficacy of '* repression** glasses. 

It is not necessary always to wear ''fogs** for 



S8 THE EYE MIND ENERGY AND MA TTER 

this purpose. In time the strain becomes re- 
laxed and clear vision can be attained without a 
return of the appetite. * 

Here is an interesting case, for the reason that 
it had been treated for the strong drink habit in 
six different institutions that made a specialty of 
treating such cases. Each having failed, the 
patient had lost all hope of ever finding relief. 
From robust, vigorous manhood he had wasted 
away to a mere skeleton. Being a highly edu- 
cated and very intelligent man, his skepticism 
and despondency were correspondingly great 
when the case came under our notice. We pro- 
ceeded by mechanically setting the brain at rest 
with ''fog'* or '^ repression'' glasses, which at 
once in a great measure subdued the general 
nervous irritability and induced a calm feeling 
akin to sleepiness. Then the psychic adjunct 
was administered to the fullest extent of our 
ability, because of his extreme skepticism. 

Strengthening and easily digestible food was 
prescribed, such as raw eggs, oatmeal, toast and 
tea, etc., to be taken at short intervals. Daily 
baths and physical culture were taken up. 
Long morning and evening walks were pre- 
scribed, which the patient soon learned to enjoy, 
and when bedtime came he was properly pre- 
pared for a good night's sleep. 



NERVOUSNESS CAUSE OF DRINK HABIT 59 

A vast improvement was observable in the 
patient during the first twenty-four hours. Each 
day added to his improvement, until at the end 
of three weeks the case was dismissed. The 
results are best told in the patient's own words 
to us four months later: 

**I am pleased to be able to say to you that I 
have steadily improved since I left your care, 
and, in fact, am in better health than I have 
been for years. My very marked improvement 
has been a subject of comment by my friends 
and acquaintances. My appetite has been 
steadily good and my sleeping improved. I 
have a general feeling of vigor which I had not 
experienced for years. I am sixteen or seven- 
teen po-unds heavier than before I went under 
your care. I have not touched even a cigar 
since I dropped the habit in Chicago, and have 
experienced no difficulty along that line. I 
have nibbled a little at chewing tobacco, but to 
a very trifling extent. My general nervous con- 
dition is very good indeed. There has been 
such a toning-up of my system that I never 
know what it is to feel Hired' as I did before 
you treated my eyes. 

' ' I shall always be very grateful to you for the 
treatment you gave me while in Chicago. I 
have been slow, however, to proclaim my eman- 



6o THE EYE MIND ENERGY AND MA TTER 

cipation from the troubles which have heretofore 
beset me, because you are not the first person 
who has held out to me promises of relief, and 
I was therefore somewhat skeptical. My faith, 
however, has become strengthened and firmly 
fixed, because from nothing have I heretofore 
received the same marked results and the same 
degree of self-confidence." 

To the uninitiated a radical advance is always 
at first beyond clear conception, of necessity 
dim, uncertain, until by new experience ever- 
increasing light at last illumines the truth. 

Advancement implies liberality, patience, 
courage, endurance. History ever has repeated 
itself, and ever will. There will be always some- 
thing new; infinity ever lies beyond. Bright 
stars will be ever appearing anew in the firma- 
ment of science. It is our God-given province 
to turn our instruments on these new-born satel- 
lites and record the truths they whisper to us, 
of the perfect, immutable laws of God. 



CHAPTER VII 

CONSUMPTION 

Tubercular consumption is not a local but a 
constitutional disease, and calls for general treat- 
ment. Tubercle bacilli do not and cannot cause 
consumption in a perfectly healthy individual. 
They induce disease only in persons with low- 
ered vitality, who thus become susceptible to 
their influence. 

The microbe theory as to the origin of disease 
is in no way affected by assuming that general 
nervous derangement, in some cases more or less 
localized, is the underlying or predisposing cause 
of disease in general. If all the organs and parts 
of the animal economy are receiving a generous 
and adequate supply of motive-force from the 
nerve-centers, the functions are necessarily per- 
formed with vigor. They are continued undis- 
turbed by the presence of the microbe, apparently 
much the same as an engine furnished with a full 
and vigorous supply of steam would not be 
perceptibly or materially affected in its move- 
ments though a hand were to be placed upon 
the fly-wheel. 

6i 

) 



62 THE EYE MIND ENERGY AND MA TTER 

It IS when the various organs and parts of the 
body are furnished with a minimum motive-force 
from weak nerve-centers, just barely enough 
force to keep up the function, that the presence 
of the microbes is sufficient to interfere with the 
performance of its work. In this case the mi- 
crobes cause still further disturbance of certain 
functions, inducing their characteristic disease. 
The engine in this case is supplied with so little 
steam that the placing of a hand upon the fly- 
wheel proves sufficient to check its normal action. 

Thus, in a very plain and simple way, are we 
enabled to account for the immunity of some 
persons from disease though they have been ex- 
posed to infection. Many theories have been 
adduced to explain this, but it is undoubtedly 
correctly explained by this theory. 

If twenty people were to migrate into a mala- 
rious district, some of them would in time suc- 
cumb to the poisonous influences of the malaria, 
which would induce fever and ague, bilious, 
dengue, or some other form of fever, according 
to the nature of the microbe. Perhaps ten of 
them would be constant victims of the malaria, 
while ten of the same company, who breathed 
the same air and drank the same water, would 
enjoy perfect health. All take in the poisonous 
influences in equal proportions; but those whose 



CONSUMPTION 63 

functions are debilitated by a lack of energy will 
yield to the baneful influence, while those whose 
functions are perfect and vigorous will not be 
affected. It is not, as we have often heard it 
expressed, that those who do not suffer throw off 
the microbe; this is a meaningless expression; 
they take the microbe into their systems in the 
same proportions as those who yield to disease, 
but their functions are so perfectly and strongly 
performed that the presence of the microbe fails 
to disturb their action, and the microbe could 
well be classed as simply an exciting cause that 
acts only where a predisposing cause exists. 

There are, it is true, bacilli sufficiently power- 
ful to excite functional disturbance in the average 
healthy person, but the few exceptions of this 
kind fall far short of establishing a general rule 
and leave bacilli properly classed as nothing more 
than exciting and not prime causes of disease. 

As all animal and vegetable life thrives best in 
its selected habitat, where the temperature, the 
food obtainable, and all other conditions are 
best suited to it, so the tubercular bacilli find 
poorly nutritioned, weak lung tissue their most 
suitable dwelling-place. The weak lung tissue 
is not there because of the presence of bacilli. 

In a stagnant pond we find tadpoles and amoe- 
bae. The stagnant pond is not there because 



64 THE EYE MIND ENERGY AND MA TTER 

of the presence of the tadpoles and amoebae. 
The fresher waters of the lake are filled with fish 
and the cold mountain stream with hardy trout, 
but the lake and stream are not there because of 
the presence of the fish. The prairies do not 
exist because the prairie-dog, the owl, and the 
snake make their homes there, nor do the woods 
and forests take their origin from their various 
inhabitants. The earth was created before man, 
and without exception all kinds of life seek their 
most suitable home. 

Cruel injustice has been meted out to sufferers 
from pulmonary consumption by microbe theo- 
rists and others who have insisted that it was 
incurable and contagious. The contagion, if 
there be contagion, is more of a psychic charac- 
ter, established and set up by pseudo-theorists, 
who are lending all of their assistance to empha- 
size dangers and horrors that have no existence 
other than that induced by psychic poison. 

When a few well-known doctors are inter- 
viewed concerning some supposed epidemic of 
diphtheria, if the press takes it up with sufficient 
prominence, nearly every sensitive person im- 
agines that he has an irritated throat, and is con- 
stantly opening wide his mouth and asking some 
friend to observe if his throat is not red or irri- 
tated. This same psychic influence, in conjunc- 



CONSUMPTION 65 

tion with bad sanitation, was the cause of many 
of the epidemics and plagues of mediaeval and 
ancient days. 

It was but recently that a well-known profes- 
sional English gentleman remarked that con- 
sumption would be easy to cure were it not for 
the disturbing influence of pessimism. 

In the union of health adjuncts, and the 
absence of pessimism, there is no such thing as 
incurable disease. 

In studying the causes of physical and mental 
disorder, it often happens that when we have 
discovered a logical factor in either engendering 
or relieving it, we are led by our intense interest 
therein to overlook or ignore other equally im- 
portant factors or causes bearing in the same 
direction. In the treatment of consumption 
(pulmonary tuberculosis), it is both a pleasure 
and an encouragement to note one remedy so 
beneficent in its results that there is scarcely any 
disagreement as to its value, namely, the open- 
air or out-of-door life. So many trustworthy 
cases are at hand of cures of consumption by this 
treatment that it would be idle to deny its effi- 
ciency. That the open air and things incident 
to living therein bring effective relief is evident 
from the fact that many consumptives have been 



66 THE EYE MIND ENERGY AND MA TTER 

cured by the same in low and high altitudes, in 
damp and dry climates, without regard to geo- 
graphical locality. In the dry air and lofty alti- 
tudes of Colorado and in the damp air and low 
altitudes of London's parks, sufferers from this 
disease, by living out of doors, have been re- 
stored to health and vigor. 

We can gather a good idea of the various fac- 
tors entering into the cure of consumption from 
the transactions of the Royal Medical and Chi- 
rurgical Society of London. At a session of 
the society. Dr. Kingston Fowler opened the 
discussion by suggesting that **a fair trial should 
be given the system of treatment which had been 
elsewhere employed with success.'* 

** Fresh air,** said he, **was only one of the 
factors in the treatment. Brehmer was the first 
to systematize the method, which consisted in, 
first, the residence of the patient in a sanitarium 
under constant medical supervision; second, 
complete freedom from excitement of all kinds ; 
third, a life spent in the open air; fourth, rest 
during periods of disease attended by fever; 
fifth, methodical hill-climbing as an exercise 
when fever is absent; sixth, an abundant and 
varied dietary in which vegetables occupied an 
important place; seventh, various hydrothera- 
peutic measures.** 



CONSUMPTION 67 

The above conditions look to the conservation 
of energy; a deficiency of which, in our opinion, 
is the primary cause of the disease. Lung tissue 
plentifully supplied with and naturally utilizing 
energy, is vigorously functioned, structurally 
strong, and proof against the contagion; and 
even when once enfeebled and the disease has 
set in, if by the open-air, or any other method, 
sufficient energy can be brought into the tissue 
of the lungs and a normal assimilation is again 
established, then the bacilli, a secondary factor 
in the disease, will disappear and the patient get 
well. 

In the treatment of this disease there are three 
important things to do: First, avoid all pessi- 
mism; it belongs to the ignorant of darker days 
than these; have faith and be of good cheer; 
second, conserve all waste of energy and increase 
the energy supply by proper feeding; third, 
direct energy to the lungs by scientific methods 
of breathing and other exercise during appro- 
priate periods. 

Professor Clifford Allbut at the same session 
of the Royal Medical and Chirurgical Society 
said: '*I have noticed a considerable difference 
between 'open-air' treatment and treatment by 
'draughts,' for instance with pavilions on the 'H* 
plan. The dining-room was placed north and 



68 THE EYE MIND ENERGY AND MA TTER 

south. When the windows were all open it was 
virtually a portico, and the wind would blow 
through it like a passage. I think that system a 
wrong one. In small bedrooms the same thing 
happened and there were circular draughts ; these 
resulted in cold catching.*' 

It seems, therefore, that the most perfect ven- 
tilation, giving a plentiful supply of fresh air, is 
not so effective a curative agent as the open-air 
or out-of-door treatment. Draughts through a 
pavilion, dining-room, or sleeping-chamber are 
currents of air, and if fresh, in what respect do 
they differ from the wind or breezes out of 
doors? With free and perfect ventilation there 
is no difference in the purity of the air in and 
out of doors ; yet there is a vast difference in the 
health-giving factors in favor of the out-of-door 
life. 

What is it that the nervous sufferer enjoys out 
of doors not elsewhere to be found? Undoubt- 
edly fresh air is a factor in health, but from this 
evidence there must be another great factor to 
be found in open-air life — which is, long range 
of vision, relieving the pressure and strain in the 
deep centers of the brain. 

During the past fifty years there has been a 
vast increase in reading matter and occupations 
requiring the use of the eyes at a near point. 



CONSUMPTION 69 

We were not born to cope with these conditions. 
We have been suddenly compelled to use our 
eyes in such work before they have been evolved 
to a condition suited to the exigencies of our 
present civilization. Their forced adaptation to 
our new needs and wants is therefore a great 
wear and exhaustion of the nervous system and 
an enormous wasteful expenditure of energy. 

Some persons yield more readily than others 
to these strains, which is probably due to various 
conditions of anatomical defects in and about 
the eyes. 

We have tried several times the experiment of 
having consumptives and very nervous persons 
take their books into the open air and spend the 
day reading, with the result that their conditions 
were made worse and the night more restless; 
whereas an idle day in the open air brought 
relief. They had the same freshness of air in 
both instances. Several patients have told us 
that even sitting and talking on the veranda 
made a very great difference in their condition 
from a day spent in idleness in the '*open.*' 

Every time a person quits close occupation 
and goes out of doors, where a long range of 
vision can be enjoyed, there is a feeling of gen- 
eral relief, due to a **letting-up*' of energy strain 
of various degrees. It is this relief of eye-strain, 



70 THE EYE MIND ENERGY AND MA TTER 

energy-strain, or brain-strain that we regard as 
one of the chief factors in the cure of consump- 
tion by the open-air treatment. 

As a preventive of eye-strain and its effects, 
all persons living indoor lives, reading, writing, 
and making close application of the eyes, should 
wear glasses which give good practical vision 
yet keep the eyes in the same position and as 
devoid of brain-strain as if leading an outdoor 
life. Assuming the eyes to be normal, if we 
put on glasses for reading and all close work 
that are equivalent to an out-of-door adjustment 
of the eyes, then, while using such glasses at a 
near range, the brain is as free from strain as if 
the eyes were looking into the extreme distance 
outdoors. Now, conservation of energy in the 
treatment of consumption being important, the 
attainment of the same by the relief of eye-strain 
is an exceedingly important factor in the cure 
of this and other diseases of the nervous. system. 

This method has been followed by us for sev- 
eral years with a very satisfactory measure of 
success. 



CHAPTER VIII 

VISION 

Sight is an active function. Although we see 
apparently without effort and without volition, 
yet every moment of vision is costing its ade- 
quate amount of vital energy. True, we cannot 
estimate just how much energy is utilized in 
looking for a given length of time at any particu- 
lar object or scene, but we do know that many 
nervous persons are very much exhausted by the 
use of the eyes for a short time in an art gallery, 
where things of great interest are constantly 
attracting their attention. Some are more ex- 
hausted by one hour of such effort with the eyes 
than they would be by ten hours of manual 
labor; consequently the same amount of vital 
force that would be required for ten hours of 
labor may be expended in one hour through the 
medium of the eyes. 

This extravagant waste might find a good par- 
allel in the following: An electric plant is scien- 
tifically constructed for the purpose of running 
fifty arc lights ; each light utilizes a given amount 
of electric force, and the fifty lights just use up 

7« 



72 THE EYE MIND ENERGY AND MA TTER 

what force the dynamo can easily generate. 
Now, in lieu of one of these arc lights, if 
we place an electric motor which uses twenty 
times as much force as the light that it has dis- 
placed, the whole electric system will be dis- 
turbed, from the fact that the electric motor is 
utilizing more than its share of the motive-force; 
consequently the other forty-nine lights in the 
circuit will not receive enough to perform their 
normal functions ; they will burn irregularly and 
feebly. We have here a state of affairs in our 
arc-light system which may be likened to that 
form of nervous debility where the prominent 
feature is constant exhaustion, due to the lack of 
a sufficient supply of nerve-impulse. But in the 
animal economy, another condition may follow 
when the ''dynamo" is overtaxed; the nerve- 
centers may be excited to an irritable condition 
in which they generate an excessive amount of 
nerve-force, and then we have an excited or agi- 
tated form of nervous derangement ; and whether 
it be general or localized, it soon wears out life. 
Strictly construed, the terms neurasthenia 
and nervous debility mean a weak or depressed 
nerve-force supply. They are sometimes care- 
lessly applied, but are not properly applicable, 
to all nervous derangements ; for we often meet 
with nervous disorders that consist of an exces- 



VISION 73 

sive supply of nerve-force, usually accompanied 
with more or less irritability, all functions in 
general being emphasized. The enormous as- 
similation in abnormally fat persons, and the 
excessive muscular development and activity in 
a class of phenomenal athletes, whose histories 
are short and frequently end in some rapidly 
wasting disease, are extreme examples of that 
form of nervous derangement which consists of 
an excess of nerve force supply and which should 
be called neurasthenia. 

Our fast ocean steamers can run nineteen or 
twenty miles an hour without excessive con- 
sumption of fuel ; but when the speed is raised 
to its highest possibilities, the last two, three, or 
four miles are attained at a very extravagant 
increase in the fuel, the consumption being far 
greater in proportion per mile, as well as result- 
ing in a great strain throughout the ship. A 
ship is sometimes unable to sustain the highest 
tension that can be put upon her by her engines, 
and therefore the careful engineer does not use 
the excess or abnormal quantity of steam. He 
runs his ship at an easy pace, and thus her life 
is lengthened many years. Likewise, when we 
learn that some of our functions are being per- 
formed at an abnormally high tension requiring 
an extravagant amount of nerve-force to sustain 



74 THE EYE MIND ENERGY AND MA TTER 

them, which is rapidly wearing us out, we should 
suspend this high rate of function and conserve 
as far as possible our life forces, by removing the 
cause of the irritation and waste of energy. 

The nerve-centers are capable of generating a 
certain amount of motive-force, or nerve-impulse, 
and no more. Whenever the call upon the cen- 
ters exceeds their ability to respond, the result 
is a disturbance somewhere. A large amount of 
motive-force is utilized in the function of vision 
even when it is performed under the easiest pos- 
sible circumstances; but when there are defects 
in the eye and its appendages, there is a still 
greater demand for nerve-force to bring about 
good vision. 

Each nerve-center is intimately connected and 
in delicate sympathy with all other centers of the 
nervous system. Any radical change in one cen- 
ter sends its characteristic influence throughout 
the entire system. 

Harmonious and pleasant sounds, picturesque 
scenes filled with things of beauty, loveliness, 
and goodness, have the most marked influence 
over the nerve-centers in general and manifest 
themselves in the form of the body, the grace 
of movement, and the sweetness of expression 
in the features. Such external influences have a 
tendency to produce, through the medium of 



VISION 75 

vision, the perfect man and woman; whereas 
the one who is reared amid scenes of crime and 
brutality, coarseness, and privation, is so influ- 
enced in his whole physical being that, to the 
experienced eye, their marks are everywhere to 
be seen. 

The reason husband and wife grow to look 
alike after living years in each other's company 
is, that they so constantly have looked upon 
each other's features, been made glad by the 
same influences, and enjoyed the same sunshine, 
and have been so often subjected to the same 
experiences, that their functions have become 
similar, and are indexed in the approximation of 
their appearance. 

Now, what particular portion of the nerve-cen- 
ters should we expect to have the greatest influ- 
ence in changing and controlling the general 
nervous system? Would it be one of the smaller 
and duller centers, or would it be the largest and 
most sensitive? We would reasonably look to 
the latter as bearing the highest influence. 

Of all the centers in the nervous system, which 
is the largest, most sensitive, and most con- 
stantly in use? 

As delicate as are the feelings of touch, taste, 
hearing, and smell, there is yet another of a 
much more highly acute nature ; in fact, by far 



76 THE EYE MIND ENERGY AND MA TTER 

the most delicate sense of all, with the largest 
gray-matter area — sight. 

The musician runs his eye over the page of 
written music, and he hears it. One sees a per- 
son across the street eating a lemon, and he 
tastes it. The salivary glands begin to act at a 
great distance from the lemon. 

Through the medium of vision, mothers com- 
municate influences to their offspring by changes 
in the nerve-impulses that control the function 
of construction or building. There are many 
substances which we cannot recognize by the 
sense of touch, but which sight determines for 
us at once, showing that the visual nerve-centers 
are the most sensitive of all. 

It is through the feelings awakened by sight 
that in reading a book and looking at its illus- 
trations, we are enabled to live in the very 
atmosphere of the scene that is depicted, feeling, 
tasting, smelling, and hearing the various things 
and surroundings that the author suggests. 

Color has much to do with irritating and ex- 
citing the visual centers. The finer waves of 
light on the chemical side are the most resting 
to the nerve-centers. The violet, blue, green, 
and shades merging on to the yellow, all give 
comfortable and soothing vision. But the coarse 



VISION 77 

red rays on the heat side of the spectrum are 
very irritating and wearing on a sensitive, ner- 
vous brain. Some animals are excited in the 
extreme by the color of red. A red cloth is 
used by the Spanish bull-fighters to arouse and 
excite their prey to fury. This is done through 
the medium of the visual centers. Various birds, 
such as geese, swans, and ducks, are similarly 
excited through the visual centers by the color 
red. We have frequently advised exceedingly 
nervous persons to abandon or change the red 
decoration or color of the walls of their living 
apartments, in favor of the soft colors on the 
opposite side of the spectrum, such as olive, 
green, and violet. In some cases the effect of re- 
ducing the nervousness was almost instantaneous. 
Everyone is familiar with the cooling, soothing 
effects of that pale green in the baby blades of 
grass and the first little leaves of spring. 

If the light of a single candle is sufficient to 
produce a perfect impression of a given object in 
the visual centers, say a letter A, there is a feel- 
ing produced in the nerve-centers that tells us of 
the presence of a letter A. If twice the light 
that is necessary is reflected from this letter A, 
twice the impact or impression that is necessary 
is conveyed to the visual centers and they are 



78 THE EYE MIND ENERGY AND MA TTER 

taxed to a double capacity. Should this light 
be increased to twenty candle-power, where one 
would be sufficient, the visual centers will re- 
ceive an impulse twenty times as strong as neces- 
sary to produce the function of seeing the letter 
A, or whatever object the eye may be resting 
upon, and the feeling of sight is overtaxed and 
disturbed; for sight is nothing more nor less 
than feeling. 

This excessive amount of useless work even in 
a normal eye wears on these delicate centers 
beyond necessity, and they become centers of 
irritation and convey disturbed conditions to 
other parts or centers of the nervous system. 
We touch a person on the shoulder gently ; this 
performs the function of attracting his attention. 
If we were to use a club and strike a severe blow, 
the attention would be attracted, but the force 
of the impact would be more than necessary, and 
an injury to the part would be the result. It is 
the same with the delicate sight centers. Just a 
sufficient amount of light to perform the function 
is all that is required, but a flood of light can be 
admitted sufficient to practically bruise these 
delicate parts of the nervous system. 

Since the advent of electric lights, which have 
practically turned night into day, there has been 
a remarkable increase in nervous disorders, in- 



VISION 79 

sanity, and tendency to suicide, due to over- 
taxation of the visual centers of the nervous 
system. 

How sweetly nature tempers light! We turn 
our eyes in the direction of hills, valleys, rivers, 
and woods, and the light reflected from the vari- 
ous objects passes into the eye and touches the 
nerves of sight, which convey the restful pictures 
to the conscious centers of the brain, and here 
we feel the form, the size, the color, and the 
motion of the various objects in the scene. 

The feeling of harmonious sounds in the audi- 
tory centers is enjoyable for the space of two or 
three hours, but a continuance beyond this 
length of time becomes tiresome, and the same 
sounds repeated for five or six hours would be 
annoying. These centers become temporarily 
exhausted or worn out. 

The feeling of taste when eating the choicest 
delicacies, in a short time, perhaps an hour, 
becomes wearied, temporarily perverted, and if 
taxed beyond this time, enjoyment ceases. The 
gustatory centers refuse to be overworked. 

The feeling of smell through the olfactory cen- 
ters is very delightful for the first few inhalations 
of some delicate perfume ; the sense of smell is 
at first prominent, but after a few moments the 
odor seems to excite no feeling at all. From 



8o THE EYE MIND ENERGY AND MA TTER 

overwork the olfactory centers have suspended 
their functions. 

The feeling in the visual centers commences 
early in the morning and continues until late at 
night. For an average of sixteen hours continu- 
ously, the feeling in the visual centers has been 
constant. No other sense in the nerve-centers 
is capable of such continued endurance. 

For good or for evil, according to their char- 
acter, the senses of feeling, taste, smell, hearing, 
and sight all have a marked influence on both 
our mental and our physical lives. Sounds of 
harmony, delicacies of wholesome and pleasant 
taste, odors that delight and please the sense of 
smell, and scenes of beauty, all have an elevating 
influence over our mental and physical lives tend- 
ing to a refinement of both mind and body. 

The Grecian was a poet, a philosopher, a sculp- 
tor, while the Scythian was a wanderer and a 
robber. One was reared amid surroundings of 
beauty and culture, the other had a barbarian 
land, rude as his manners and wild as his heart. 



CHAPTER IX 

EYE MUSCLES AND THEIR NERVE-CENTERS 

Each eye has ten muscles, which perform all 
the movements necessary to the function of 
vision. Four of them are called rectus or 
straight muscles, as follows : The superior rectus, 
the inferior rectus, the external rectus, and the 
internal rectus. Next are the superior and in- 
ferior oblique muscles. These are the six ex- 
trinsic muscles of the eyeball. Within the 
eyeball there are four muscles — the circular 
ciliary, the radiating ciliary, the circular iris, 
and the radial iris. 

Considered individually, the primary action of 
the long muscles of the eye is as follows: The 
external rectus turns the eye outward ; the inter- 
nal inward; the superior, upward and slightly 
inward, with a torsional movement of the upper 
aspect of the eye toward the nose. The inferior 
moves the eye downward, slightly inward, with a 
slight torsion of the upper aspect of the eye 
from the nose. The superior oblique makes a 
torsion of the upper aspect of the eye toward 
the nose, with a slight movement of the optic 

8i 



82 THE EYE MIND ENERGY AND MA TTER 

axes outward and downward ; the inferior oblique 
produces torsion of the upper aspect from the 
nose, with a small tendency to turn the optic 
axes outward and upward. The circular ciliary 
contracts around the edge of the crystalline lens 
and increases its antero-posterior curvature, thus 
increasing its refractive power. The radiating 
ciliary is a much weaker muscle which assists in 
retracting and flattening the lens. The circular 
iris muscle contracts the pupil and the radial 
iris muscle assists in dilating it. 

Considered relatively, there are four antago- 
nistic sets of muscles: First, the superior and 
inferior recti ; second, the external and internal ; 
third, the superior and inferior obliques; fourth, 
the superior and inferior recti as antagonized by 
the superior and inferior obliques. The latter 
set slightly diverges the optic axes, and the 
former set slightly converges them. 

There are six sets of synchronously acting 
muscles: First, the superior recti turn both eyes 
upward; second, the inferior recti move them 
downward; third, the right external and left 
internal recti turn both eyes to the right; 
fourth, the left external and right internal recti 
turn both eyes to the left; fifth, the superior 
and inferior obliques of the right eye, acting 
together, in connection with the superior and 



EYE MUSCLES AND THEIR NERVE CENTERS 83 

inferior recti of the left eye, have a tendency to 
turn both eyes sh'ghtly to the right ; sixth, the 
superior and inferior obh'ques of the left eye, 
acting synchronously with the superior and in- 
ferior recti of the right eye, turn the eyes slightly 
to the left. 

A most important further secondary action 
takes place as follows: When the eye is turned 
upward so that the relative equator of the eye- 
ball is thrown below the parallelism of the in- 
ternal and external recti, a contraction of these 
muscles will assist in turning the eye upward. 
Conversely, when the eye is turned downward so 
that its equator lies above the line of these 
muscles, their contraction will assist in turning 
the eye downward. When the eye is turned 
outward so that its equator lies inside the line 
of the superior and inferior recti, their contrac- 
tion would assist in turning the eye outward. 
When the eye is turned inward so that the 
equator lies outside of the line of the superior 
and inferior recti their contraction assists in turn- 
ing the eye inward. 

It is the tonic contraction of the superior and 
inferior recti, especially their internal edges, 
that prevents a converging eye, in squint, from 
moving back into a normal position after the 
internal rectus has been completely divided by 



84 THE EYE MIND ENERGY AND MA TTER 

an operation. This is the cause of the many 
failures to straighten eyes by surgery. 

That various parts receive their nerve-supply 
from the same nerve does not imply that their 
functions are necessarily similar, or that the 
governing nerve-centers are in the same local- 
ity; for two fibrilla in a nerve, lying side by 
side, may have the most widely separate origin 
possible in the nerve-centers. 

All of the ten muscles of the eye receive their 
nerve supply over the third cranial nerve, with 
two exceptions. The superior oblique receives 
its supply from the fourth nerve and the ex- 
ternal rectus muscle over the sixth nerve. 

The nerve cells that govern accommodation or 
furnish energy to the ciliary muscles lie in the 
floor of the third ventricle, in the middle base of 
the brain. The cells that energize the internal 
rectus muscles that converge the eyes lie in the 
posterior part of the floor of the third ventricle 
and the aqueduct of Sylvius. The nerve cells 
that control the external rectus muscles are in 
the floor of the fourth ventricle of the brain at 
the top of the spinal column. 



CHAPTER X 

CAUSES OF DISEASE 

We give specific names to disturbances in the 
various parts or organs of the body, but still 
they are nothing more than erratic functions, 
which may be localized in the liver, kidneys, 
heart, digestive apparatus, lungs, or any other 
part or parts of the economy. 

Health is that condition in which all the func- 
tions are normal. Any departure of a function 
from its normal state is disease. 

Disease is localized abnormal innervation and 
always central in the nervous system. 

Disease may take its origin from a sufficient 
irritation of any of the nerve-centers, but much 
oftener will find its origin through the most 
highly acute and sensitive centers. 

What is termed organic disease really consists 
of some lesion of the parts which is the result of 
continued erratic function, and in the true sense 
lesion is not disease but the result of disease. 

The growth of tumors is due to abnormal inner- 
vation. In a benign tumor there is an excess of 
assimilative nerve-impulse which causes the part 

85 



S6 THE EVE MIND ENERGY AND MA TTER 

to gather unto itself more than its proportionate 
quantity of natural tissue. In a malignant 
tumor cognate conditions exist, in which the 
assimilation consists of gathering heterogeneous 
elements forming a structure which is alien to 
the part, and according to many of the best 
known authorities it always has its origin in 
devitalized, weak embryonic cells, due to a defi- 
ciency of nerve-force supply. 

In the study of disease, we have exhausted 
our fullest resources in searching for causes. 
We find various lesions, such as deposit, disin- 
tegration, hypertrophy, atrophy, and other ab- 
normal conditions, and often have settled upon 
some of these lesions as being the cause of other 
pathological symptoms. This is not true; they 
are nothing more than accompanying conditions 
and results of a common cause. A lesion is 
always a result and not a prime cause. 

Diseases of the eye, like those of the body, 
are localized abnormal innervation. By con- 
sidering a few individual cases, we can draw 
general conclusions which will enable us to indi- 
vidualize any disease of the eye under the theory 
of erratic function. Eye-strain causes disturb- 
ances of the nerve-centers, and they are reflexed 
to the eye, disturbing the various delicate func- 
tions of nutrition. In cataract, there is a gradual 



CAUSES OF DISEASE 87. 

loss of those vital forces that keep up the nutri- 
tion and life of the crystalline lens, and it slowly 
dies, becomes a foreign, opaque body. 

In glaucoma, one of the most popular treat- 
ments is iridectomy, and sometimes cyclotomy. 
Occasionally these operations have been known 
to arrest the disease, which, in our opinion, they 
do only when the glaucoma has been dependent 
on latent strain through the ciliary muscle. 
The iridectomy, as well as the division of the 
ciliary muscle, would have a tendency to sus- 
pend the tonic spasm or contraction of latent 
hyperopia, and thus in a measure restore equilib- 
rium in the distribution of nerve-force to various 
parts of the eye; but, where these operations 
fail to produce any effect whatever, our opinion 
is that there may be an excessive strain in 
some one of the long muscles that is giving 
rise to the disturbance ; and if this long muscle 
strain is sought out and corrected, the improve- 
ment will be as certain as in those cases that 
are relieved by operations affecting the ciliary 
muscle. 

Many forms of inflammation of the eyes are 
due to these causes, and a correction of latent 
eye-strain often acts like magic in relieving these 
troubles after they have resisted other treatment. 
Any disease of the eye, other than zymotic or 



88 THE EYE MIND ENERGY AND MATTER 

traumatic, and a continuance of even these, may 
depend on eye-strain. 

In determining the cause of a disease, it is 
very important to discriminate between exciting 
and predisposing causes, for we commit an error 
in supposing some exciting disturbance to be the 
sole cause. This can always be laid down as a 
wrong conclusion where the same or a similar 
exciting cause fails to bring about universally 
similar results. If the same exciting causes are 
brought to bear on two persons and one is 
affected by them and the other not, there is 
somewhere a difference in the two individuals. 
There is a weakness in one which causes him to 
yield to the exciting cause. In the other vigor 
exists sufficient to resist the exciting cause. 

Any investigation of disease is remiss if it 
stops at exciting causes. When we have found 
one prominent cause for a disease, we should not 
relax our search for others. 

All medicines or remedies are administered 
with the expectation or hope that they will cor- 
rect whatever disturbed functions the disease 
may consist of. The end sought is to reestab- 
lish normal action in the nerve-centers and thus 
restore perfect function. 

We do not inherit disease, but those conditions 
which may, if neglected, give rise to disease. 



CHAPTER XI 

LATENT CONDITIONS 

Defects in various parts of the eye, including 
the muscles as to their length, may exist to a 
very considerable extent and yet the function of 
vision be perfectly performed. Some of the 
muscles may be so short that they would cause 
the visual axes to deviate many degrees if it were 
not that the opposite muscles pull them into a 
normal position, through the intervention of 
nerve-impulse. Nerve-impulse is also the pri- 
mary factor in causing the ciliary muscle to con- 
tract around the crystalline lens, increasing its 
refractive power when it is deficient. Just how 
fixed and permanent, through a long lapse of 
time, these nerve-impulses may become, acting 
as masks to anatomical defects, is the chief 
object of our inquiry. 

The average person of middle age whose eyes 
are apparently perfect may be seated behind an 
eight degree prism, base down, when at twenty 
feet a light will appear as two lights, one directly 
over the other or vertical. According to the 
prevailing idea, this indicates that the eyes are 

8q 



90 THE EYE MIND ENERGY AND MA TTER 

balanced as far as the lateral or external and 
internal rectus muscles are concerned. Now, if 
this balance depends upon the anatomical length 
of the muscles, the following test would indicate 
it : We take off the eight degree prism, base down, 
and place on the patient say six degrees of prism, 
base out. We direct the patient to look around 
the room for a few minutes, and then renew the 
test with the eight degree prism, base down, while 
the six degree prism is still on the patient. One of 
the two lights will probably still appear to be di- 
rectly over the other. We are now certain that 
we have six degrees of prism unaccounted for by 
the test. Sometimes we are able to put as high 
as twenty or even more degrees of prism over a 
patient's eyes, base in or base out, as just de- 
scribed, and after they have been used for an 
hour, more or less, the lights will still appear to 
be vertical. If the anatomical length of the 
muscles was the cause of the position of the 
eyes, and the lateral muscles balanced without 
prisms, then when we put on six degrees of 
prism, base in or base out, we ought to have 
found this added prism by the difference in 
the position of the lights. Such experiments 
clearly demonstrate how unreliable all diffusion 
tests are. Long trained and more or less 
fixed abnormal nerve-impulses hide defects 



LATENT CONDITIONS 9^ 

under these tests where they really exist to a 
high degree. 

Now, if this tendency to single vision asserts 
itself with such alacrity and certainty under an 
artificially created irregularity, how much more 
would the constant effort of years, working and 
pulling against a muscle that is too short, have a 
tendency to hide the defect from all diffusion 
tests? 

The various disturbances taking their origin in 
the visual nerve-centers from eye-strain have 
been doing their devastating work from the very 
time of birth ; they have been generating, from 
the very hour the two eyes first began to train 
together, those conditions that are conducive to 
disease. From that moment, nerve-force waste 
and brain irritation with its correlated conse- 
quences began. It is true, in certain cases, that 
some of the most distressing symptoms of disease 
are often relieved immediately on a correction of 
the abnormal innervation ; but it stands to reason 
that the greater measure of disturbed conditions, 
which have been so many years in being estab- 
lished, require patience and time for perfect relief. 
The various nerve-impulses that perform their 
characteristic functions must all be changed. 
The nerve-centers that generate this force, and 
the avenues they travel, must all be differen- 



92 THE EYE MIND ENERGY AND MA TTER 

tiated. A new correlation has to be established, 
and sufficiently long established to maintain a 
permanency of the new and desired condition of 
affairs. 

The relief of pain and the subjugation of other 
symptoms is simply an indication that we are 
proceeding in the right direction with repression. 
Although pain may be stopped, or a prominent 
symptom subjugated, before perfect health is 
restored there are other fully as important 
changes to take place which will require time. 
Often serious diseases or conditions exist that are 
unaccompanied by pain; nevertheless, they are 
as emphatically important. Where disturbed 
brain centers have been for years furnishing im- 
perfect motive-force to perform the various func- 
tions throughout the body, the parts become 
more or less enfeebled. It takes time to rebuild 
that which has been many years in breaking 
down. We are apt to become enthusiastic when 
suddenly relieved of some pain or alarming 
symptom ; but the process of reconstruction that 
follows the new supply of vital force is not imme- 
diate. We are not conscious of it from day to 
day, but we can realize it after a lapse of time, 
and we become calmly conscious that years will 
be slowly added to life. 



CHAPTER XII 

MUSCLE IRREGULARITIES 

The following are the terms usually applied to 
the irregularities existing in the extrinsic muscles 
of the eye: 

Orthophoria: Regular or correct tending of 
the optic axes. 

Heterophoria: Different tending of the optic 
axes. 

Esophoria: Inward or convergent tendency of 
the optic axes. 

Exophoria: Outward or divergent tendency of 
the optic axes. 

Hyperphoria: Upward tending of the optic 
axes. 

Cataphoria: Downward tending of the optic 
axes. 

Cyclophoria: Tendency of an eye to rotate 
relatively from its mate. 

These terms have heretofore been used in a 
relative sense only; namely, esophoria, a relative 
tending of the optic axes toward each other; 
exophoria, a relative tending from each other; 
hyperphoria, in which one eye tends relatively 

93 



94 THE EYE MIND ENERGY AND MA TTER 

higher than the other; cataphoria, in which it 
tends lower. A person with but one eye may 
have any one of the above conditions. The 
optic axis of a single eye may turn inward, out- 
ward, upward, or downward from what would 
be a normal position, giving rise to considerable 
disturbance and strain, especially if a glass is 
worn, in which case the clearest vision is sought 
through its center, necessitating the holding of 
the eye in a normal position. If a glass is not 
worn, the head is usually thrown into that posi- 
tion which most relieves the strain. If the upper 
muscle is short, the chin is thrown down and the 
forehead forward; if the lower, the chin is 
thrown up and the head back; but if the short 
muscle is the outer, the head is usually turned so 
as to relieve the strain. These conditions are 
quite common in persons with but one eye, so 
it is well to discriminate between relative and 
individual heterophoria. 

By considering only the relative position of 
the two eyes, we are likely to overlook some 
grave defect in the ocular muscles, for it is pos- 
sible for both of the superior muscles to be short 
in conjunction with a relative deviation. Where 
both superior muscles are short there is the ten- 
dency to throw the chin downward, and this in 
our opinion has much to do in inducing the 



MUSCLE IRREGULARITIES 95 

ungraceful position commonly called *' round 
shoulder*' or ** stoop/* In accommodating the 
head and body to these various forms of hetero- 
phoria, awkward relative positions of the body 
are sometimes acquired. It has been suggested 
that spinal curvature has been occasioned by it. 
Many cases require long and careful investiga- 
tion before safe conclusions can be drawn. 



CHAPTER XIII 

HORIZONTALIZING AND VERTICALIZING 

From a physiological standpoint, there would 
appear to be a great number of visual centers in 
the nervous system. When rays of light are 
reflected from an object and focused in each 
eye, there is a strong effort of the two eyes to 
fix themselves in such a position that the picture 
made or reflected on the posterior part of each 
eye shall be in corresponding localities. A ray 
of light falling exactly on the most sensitive 
center or yellow spot of the right eye stimulates 
through the nerve-centers a tendency to fix the 
left eye in such a position that a ray of light 
emanating from the same point will also fall upon 
the most sensitive center or yellow spot in that 
eye. The same tendency prevails throughout 
the field of vision. If an eye is fixed on an 
object, it will be possible to see other objects 
for quite a distance in various directions without 
moving the eye; for instance, objects upward as 
far as forty-five degrees can be seen, outward 
over ninety degrees, downward about seventy 
degrees, inward fifty-five to sixty degrees. 

96 



HORIZONTALIZING AND VERTICALIZING 97 

To define an object as having form, it is neces- 
sary that several impressions be received in the 
nerve-centers simultaneously or nearly so. The 
average acuity of vision is an angle of one minute. 
The top of a letter E falls on a portion of the retina 
that conveys an impression of its existence, also 
the tongue of the letter and the bottom of it; the 
upright portion and the two spaces between the 
tongue and the upper and lower parts fall upon 
separate portions of the retina, each of which takes 
a distinct impression, and their relative positions 
are noted by separate and distinct sensory cen- 
ters in the brain ; consequently we feel the form 
of the letter E. If it were a single sensory cen- 
ter that these distinct and separate objects were 
conveyed to, it would be a single confused im- 
pression. 

So, from a physiological standpoint, we see that 
each minute point in the posterior part of the eye 
or field of vision is susceptible of taking a sepa- 
rate impression, and has somewhere a distinct 
sensory center in the nervous system. In look- 
ing directly in front of us, we see a red light off 
to the right because rays emanating from it have 
fallen on that portion of the field of vision that 
conveys its impression to that particular center 
in the brain that locates it, and always does 
locate any object falling upon it, to the right of 



98 THE EYE MIND ENERGY AND MA TTER 

the optic axes; and so it is with each minute 
and separate locality throughout the entire field 
of vision. When we contemplate the numerous 
objects that may be distinguished without moving 
the eye, we may conceive how numerous must 
be the sensory centers for the function of vision. 
At least one for each angle of vision. 

The minute angle is a definite area on the 
retina at any fixed distance. In the vertical 
meridian alone we have over seven thousand 
different points of fixation, or minute angles. 
To approximate the entire range of fixations in 
all meridians we will take the square of six thou- 
sand, which is thirty-six millions of minute angles 
or points on which one eye can possibly fix. 
This is a very conservatively liberal approxima- 
tion. 

When the two eyes are fixed so that rays of 
light falling from a given point are * reflected on 
corresponding localities in the field of vision, a 
single impression of the object ensues, because 
each of these corresponding points is supplied 
with a nerve-filament that leads to a common or 
single sensory center; but when rays coming 
from the same point fall on different or non- 
corresponding localities in the two eyes, they 
necessarily meet with nerve filaments originating 
from two different sensory centers, and each eye 



HORIZONTALIZING AND VERTICALIZING 99 

conveys an impression of the same object to dis- 
tinctly separate centers, and two impressions of 
the same object are the result. 

Always, under such conditions, there is a strong 
effort of the two eyes to fix their optic axes so 
that the two apparent objects may be fused into 
one, thus avoiding confusion and increasing the 
sense of vision. In doing so, the various muscles 
act as follows: Let two imaginary lines bisect 
each other at right angles, one horizontally and 
the other vertically, and we shall have a cross. 
Now, suppose the eyes to be out of visual line 
so that a dot will appear to the right eye to be 
in the lower right-hand corner of the space occu- 
pied by the cross, and that to the left eye the 
same object will appear in the left upper portion 
of the cross. These impressions simultaneously 
seen with bQth eyes will appear as two dots. To 
merge or fuse these two impressions of the dot 
into one, the external and internal muscles move 
the eyes laterally until they are in such a posi- 
tion that the two dots are brought to the imagi- 
nary vertical line of the cross. One will now be 
above the other. This we call the tendency to 
verticalize, exerted by the internal and external 
rectus muscles; while at the same time, the 
superior and inferior rectus muscles move the 
eyes upward and downward to such a position 



LofC. 



loo THE EYE MIND ENERGY AND MA TTER 

that the dots are brought to the imaginary hori- 
zontal line. This we call the tendency to hori- 
zontalize. 

The vertical and lateral muscles in accom- 
plishing the above movements receive some 
aid from other muscles. These tendencies to 
horizontalize and verticalize being exerted sim- 
ultaneously, bring the two impressions of a dot 
to the center of the cross, merging them into 
one object. In this position, rays emanating 
from a single point fall on corresponding locali- 
ties in each eye, and are conveyed to a single 
visual center, producing the impression of one. 
The superior and inferior oblique muscles also 
play their part in the rotations of the eyes, so 
that rays from a single point may fall upon cor- 
responding localities. The above process is 
called fusion. 



CHAPTER XIV 

REVERSAL OF METHOD IN ESOPHORIA 

Since the publication of ''The Eye in Its 
Relation to Health/* in 1895, there has been no 
radical change in our general views except in 
regard to esophoria, and even with reference to 
that subject our present views were well fore- 
shadowed and outlined in that work. We now 
treat esophoria as being always due to spasm. 
In no case do we recognize shortness of the in- 
ternal muscles as the cause. 

This radical departure in methods was pub- 
lished in the Medical Journal, New York, July 24, 
1897, under the caption ''Strabismus Theories.** 
In that article we endeavored to explain why 
such marked relief sometimes followed tenoto- 
mies of the internal rectus muscle, which we 
demonstrated as due to the relief of a conten- 
tionary strain, direct and counter strain, between 
the internal and the external rectus muscles, 
illustrating the strain and its relief as follows: 

' ' A rope forty feet long is turned around a post ; 
each end is held by a boy, who for some reason 
desires to keep just twenty feet of rope on his 

lOI 



102 THE EYE MIND ENERGY AND MA TTER 

side of the post. The rope, to start with, being 
evenly divided, a minimum tension permits each 
to have his twenty feet of rope. Now, the 
stronger boy begins to pull ten pounds harder 
than necessary, which would naturally give him 
more rope. This requires the other boy to meet 
this dynamic force by ten pounds of counter pull 
or resistance. This now stimulates the stronger 
boy to increase his pull, necessitating an increase 
of effort on the part of the other to prevent his 
losing his position. Each continues to maintain 
his twenty feet of rope, but, through gradually 
increasing strain and counter-strain, both are 
now pulling one hundred pounds each, where but 
very few pounds would suffice to maintain a 
balance. Now, if the stronger boy can be 
quieted and induced to diminish his effort, the 
weaker boy will be more than willing to meet 
him by diminishing his effort, until the efforts of 
both have been reduced again to a minimum, 
each still having his twenty feet of rope.'' 

When the stronger or internal muscle was 
relaxed by operation, both the direct strain and 
the counter-strain were for the time abandoned, 
and the temporary relief to the nervous system 
was frequently very marked. 

But this relief always proved of such a transi- 
tory character, with reference to systemic and 



REVERSAL OF METHOD IN ESOPHORIA 103 

local conditions, that we were forced to our 
present views, the following out of which in onr 
practice since has given uniform and universally 
good results. 

It was this unrecognized truth and the practice 
on the old lines of correcting esophoria that led 
our profession into the differences of opinion as 
to the effects of eye-strain and the value of its 
correction. 

We now proceed to give our original views of 
esophoria, and our more recent practice of the 
last eight or nine years. 

Esophoria,* or a tendency to a convergence of 
the optic axes, is the most deceptive and trouble- 
some condition with which we have to deal, and 
from its very nature we can see how unreliable 
all diffusion tests are, as indicating the true 
conditions. 

We will suppose a case where the lengths of 
the various long muscles of the eye are such that, 
without effort, the axes of the two eyes are per- 
fectly parallel at a distance of twenty feet or 
more. The muscles, in performing their func- 
tions at an infinite distance make their move- 
ments in various directions synchronously, the 

*From "The Eye in Its Relation to Health," 1895, Chap- 
ter XIII. 



104 THE EYE MIND ENERGY AND MATTER 

superior muscles turning both eyes upward, and 
the inferior muscles turning them downward. 
Turning to the right, the right external and the 
left internal act together, and the necessary in- 
nervation is compensated for when the two eyes 
are directed to the left; for then the left exter- 
nal and the right internal require an amount of 
innervation equivalent to that required for the 
movement in the other direction. 

Supposing the various inclinations of the head 
to the right and to the left to be of nearly equal 
frequency, the oblique muscles will also be uni- 
formly exercised. Thus in the various move- 
ments of the eye at a distance, there is a tendency 
to establish more or less of an equilibrium in the 
nerve-impulses that contract the various muscles ; 
but when the vision is fixed upon some object at 
a near point, as is necessary in reading, writing, 
and in the pursuit of various mechanical arts, the 
internal rectus muscles receive an amount of 
nerve-force necessary to break the parallelism 
of the infinite distance, and converge the eyes 
toward each other. 

The repeated exercise of the internal muscles 
has a constant tendency to develop their power, 
and there is no counter movement of the eyes in 
which the opposing muscles have any opportu- 
nity for a like development. It is for this reason 



REVERSAL OF METHOD IN ESOPHORIA 105 

that we always find the internal muscles much 
stronger than the external; but the difference in 
strength between the internal and external 
muscles has no tendency to cause the eyes to 
deviate from perfect parallelism at a distance. 

Under normal conditions there remains the 
ability to suspend the nerve-impulse that gives 
greater strength to the internal muscles. When 
the eyes are removed from the near to the remote 
point, the relaxation is a negative act, yet a nor- 
mal function. There is no contention between 
the internal and the external muscles. Under 
normal conditions, the function of suspending 
nerve-impulse exists in all the ocular muscles; 
when certain muscles contract to perform some 
office their opposites relax to assist them. In 
the fullest sense this suspension of nerve-impulse 
is probably not absolute. Just sufficient conten- 
tion continues to give the eyes a steady position; 
but, where the employment of the eyes has been 
such as to necessitate their use at the near point 
constantly, from morning until night, day after 
day, as in the case of an inveterate reader or 
writer, or an artisan with his work constantly 
close to his eyes, the nerve-impulses of the in- 
ternal muscles are almost constant, v/ith little or 
quite infrequent periods of relaxation; thus the 
impulse becomes such a fixed and constant quan- 



io6 THE EYE MIND ENERGY AND MA TTER 

tity that ultimately there is an inability to sus- 
pend it entirely. Such eyes, when examined at 
a distance of twenty feet or more, show a posi- 
tive tendency toward convergence, while at the 
near point we may find a balance, a convergence, 
or even a tendency to divergence, as a result of 
the excessive abnormal innervation. 

By diffusion tests a convergence may appear 
where the .... externals are short, in which 
case it is a reverse manifestation .... 

The above demonstrates how dangerous it is 
to rely on any diffusion test as an indication of 
the true anatomical condition of the ocular mus- 
cles; and it is not strange that, by so doing, 
many have been thrown into doubt and confu- 
sion as to the importance of this field of work. 

Repression, in which symptoms are our chief 
guide as we proceed, is the only method of safely 
determining whether the diffusion or manifest 
tests have given a true or false indication of the 
condition of the muscles. The majority of cases 
of manifest esophoria are reverse manifestations, 
or due to spasm. When esophoria exists at the 
far point, and exophoria at the near, it is pretty 
safe to conclude that the esophoria is not due to 
a short muscle, but to spasm. 

In our recent and present views and practice, 



REVERSAL OF METHOD IN ESOPHORIA 107 

we regard esophoria as universally due to spasm 
with the external rectus muscles always short. 
This will clear up the differences of opinion as 
to the values of eye-strain, and the views and 
practice are here given in the words which we 
used in a professional address at Milwaukee 
August 2, 1904: 

The eyeball consists of three coats or tunics; 
the outer is the sclerotic, or skeleton of the eye; 
the next within is the vascular tunic, the choroid; 
the third, or inner layer, is the nervous system 
of the eye, called the retina. The refractive 
media, beginning at the front of the eye, are the 
cornea, the aqueous humor, the crystalline lens, 
and the vitreous body. With the exception of 
the crystalline lens, the refraction in these vari- 
ous media is fixed and unchangeable, except 
slight corneal alterations due to eyelid pressure, 
and in diseased states, but the crystalline lens 
lying immediately behind the pupil is an elastic, 
resilient body, capable of having its curvatures 
changed by the muscular system which surrounds 
its periphera, thus varying the refraction of the 
ocular system so that it can adjust or focus for 
near, far, and intermediate distances. 

Berry, many other authorities, and we our- 
selves believe that the new-born babe is hyper- 
opic, or deficient in the magnifying power of the 



io8 THE EYE MIND ENERGY AND MATTER 

eye. The anatomical state of rest is manifest 
hypermetropia. This primary insufficiency of 
refraction is corrected in the following manner: 
A stimulus for more perfect vision excites a 
transforming action in the axial gray matter cells 
in the floor of the third ventricle of the brain. 
The nerve fibers transmit the nerve force from 
these cells to the ciliary muscle which contracts 
around the edge of the lens, increasing the curva- 
ture and magnifying power until normal vision 
ensues. Through irritation sometimes these 
nerve-centers overdo their work, increasing the 
curvature and refraction too much, inducing 
functional myopia or exaggerated hypermetropia. 

The deficiency of refraction in the original 
anatomical state in different individuals varies 
considerably. To illustrate: 

Case one. An eye in its anatomical state of 
rest is deficient one- fourth of a dioptre; the 
nerve-centers energize the ciliary muscle and 
shape the lens, so that the refraction becomes 
normal. 

Case two. In this case we assume that in the 
anatomical state of rest the refraction is insuffi- 
cient to the extent of eight dioptres. Now, the 
nerve cells transform a much greater amount of 
energy than in case one, and send it over the 
nerve fibers to stimulate the contraction of the 



REVERSAL OF METHOD IN ESOPHORIA 109 

ciliary muscle, thereby enormously increasing 
the curvature of the crystalline lens, and thus as 
perfect vision is established in case two, with 
eight dioptres of refractive deficiency. 

A higher acuity of vision is frequently sus- 
tained in the latter case, because the nerve-cen- 
ters are taxed to such a high state that extreme 
sensibility results. People having a higher acu- 
ity of vision than normal have nervous systems 
of high tension. 

In comparison with case one, case two prob- 
ably requires more than one hundred times the 
energy to adjust the lens, for the reason that 
the last quarter of a dioptre requires much more 
strain in adjusting than the first. Conditions 
are similar with a steamship running at a high 
rate of speed. The last two or three miles of 
the rate are attained by a comparatively enor- 
mous expenditure of fuel. 

When the nerve-cells are capable of exerting 
the strain, as perfect vision will be induced in 
the exceedingly great as in the minor deficiencies 
of refraction. This enormous waste of energy is 
more than the nervous system can afford, and all 
of the functions of the body will suffer severely 
the loss of their proportion. 

With these illustrations in view it becomes 
emphatically suggestive when we see professional 



1 10 THE EYE MIND ENERGY AND MA TTER 

men simply directing their patients to look at 
Snellen's test type, and if they can read the letters 
indicating normal vision the subject of the eye is 
dismissed by them as having nothing to do with 
the case. 

When we think how much strain may exist 
under the most perfect vision, as in case two, 
when we consider its fatal consequences to life 
and happiness, such an examination and con- 
clusion are not only careless, but criminal. 

When the nerve-centers have kept up these 
strains in adjusting the eyes for many years, the 
strain becomes a habit, latent and continuous, 
even during the hours of sleep. These latent 
strains exhaust and irritate the nerve-centers to a 
far greater extent than manifest strains. 

Medical instillations into the eye of mydriatics, 
such as atropine and hyoscyamine, are resorted to 
for the purpose of abating these strains and deter- 
mining the quantity of latent hyperopia, a system 
of medication not universally satisfactory and 
for reasons objectionable to the patient. 

One reason why mydriatics sometimes fail to 
act is, an educated correlation exists between the 
focusing and alignment centers, and when atro- 
pine is used to paralyze the ciliary muscle, the 
axial alignment continues and keeps up a strong 
association stimulus to the ciliary, thus prevent- 



REVERSAL OF METHOD IN ESOPHORIA m 

ing the ciliary from yielding to the action of the 
drug. Whereas, by repression with prisms and 
fogs we simultaneously attack both the ciliary 
and the alignment strains, so neither one can 
assist in hiding the other, but each assists in 
revealing the other's defects. Mydriatics are 
used empirically, also repression or fogging is 
conducted on arbitrary lines. This is necessary 
because we are searching for an unknown quan- 
tity of latent strain. 

As to the lateral position of the eyes the 
anatomical state of rest is exophoria; the eyes 
diverge from each other. This is evinced by 
the totally blind, the narcotized, deeply intoxi- 
cated, and the eyes of the dead. We have 
spoken of the necessity of the new-born infant 
to exert a strain to induce normal focus of the 
eye from its anatomical state of rest — hyper- 
metropia. We are now considering a second 
strain that takes place in the nerve-centers dur- 
ing the adjustment for single vision, these two 
strains existing at the same time. 

The internal muscles receive their working 
power from the nerve cells in the posterior pai^t 
of the floor of the third ventricle of the brain and 
the floor of the aqueduct of Sylvius ; the exter- 
nal recti receive theirs principally from the floor 
of the fourth ventricle, deep in the base of the 



1 1 2 THE EYE MIND ENERGY AND MA TTER 

brain at the beginning of the spinal cord. In 
the anatomical state of rest, the eyes diverge. 
A stimulus for single vision energizes the internal 
muscles, and they pull the eyes together into 
axial alignment. Sometimes from irritation the 
internal muscles are too much innervated and 
pull the eyes in too far, beyond the point of 
visual alignment, establishing esophoria, which 
is always functional, due to tonic spasm, is 
always latent, and productive of as much evil as 
latent hypermetropia. 

Eyes in their anatomical state of rest vary in 
their outward tending from a few to many 
degrees. The amount of nerve strain varies 
considerably in different cases where the degrees 
of deviation are the same, for the tendons are 
broad, thick, and unyielding in one case, while 
in another they are thin, elastic, and pull into 
line with less strain, even where the deviation 
may be greater. 

In treating esophoria, the use of prisms base 
out to get a simple mechanical adjustment of 
the lines of sight is a serious error, but was the 
universal old method. 

In esophoria our object is to cure the spasm, 
which is the cause of energy waste and brain 
irritation; then the maladjustment disappears 
by the relaxation of the internal rectus muscle. 



REVERSAL OF METHOD IN ESOPHORIA 113 

The practice of cutting the internal muscles, let- 
ting the eyes out to a mechanical adjustment, 
does not lessen brain strain — the spasm; it in- 
creases it. It simply diverges the visual axes 
and increases the strain as an ultimate effect, if 
the nerve centers are able to furnish the energy ; 
otherwise the interni lose their functioning 
power from the operation, in which case the 
eyes ultimately turn outward into manifest 
exophoria. For this reason operations on the 
interni for esophoria are always an error. 

By repression with prisms, base in, esophoria 
can always be cured and the average case can 
be turned into manifest exophoria, which we do 
when wished-for physiological changes demand it. 

To cure these two conditions, we proceed in 
exactly the opposite way to the old practice — 
prisms base in for esophoria and plus or fog 
glasses for functional myopia. By using prisms 
base in for esophoria, all that can be fused for, 
the eyes are forced to turn outward to maintain 
single vision. This causes the nerve-centers to 
abandon their nerve supply to the internal mus- 
cles and in time abates the spasm and the ex- 
haustive brain waste. 

A light fog is not easily tolerated, because it 
does not sufficiently repress the strain to quiet 
the nerve-centers and subdue the annoyance of 



1 1 4 THE EYE MIND ENERGY AND MA TTER 

dim vision, but a dense fog so relieves the nerve- 
centers that the dimness of vision is forgotten 
and a calm, quiet, even sleepy, condition is 
induced. 

Prisms can be methodically increased at times 
and worn until the esophoria or spasm causing it 
has disappeared, as with patience it always will. 
With plus glasses that fog, the eyes invariably 
seek better vision by forcing the ciliary muscles 
to relax, and their nerve cells are obliged to 
repress, hold back, the excess of nerve force that 
has kept up the spasm, which in time by this 
process is abated. During this treatment the 
vision is dim. Under the arbitrary use of atro- 
pine the vision is also dim, but it fails to produce 
as good results and is only temporary in its 
effect. When we remember that the nerve-cen- 
ters governing vision per se, and the muscles 
that adjust the eye for position, take up fully 
one-third of the entire gray matter of the brain, 
and when we study eye-strain from a physiologi- 
cal standpoint, we should expect wonderful 
results to follow the relief of these strains. 

Go through a lunatic asylum and cover the 
eyes of the insane, and it would be impossible to 
tell whether they were insane or not. The eye 
is the strong distinctive feature that tells us that 
the brain has gone wrong. 



CHAPTER XV 

EXOPHORIA 

When the visual axes are incorrect, the condi- 
tion is due to one of two causes — either an 
anatomically short muscle or one contracted by 
spasm. Without first positively ascertaining this 
fact no intelligent or safe procedure can be made 
in correcting eye-strain. 

When the optic axes deviate or have a ten- 
dency so to do, heretofore the fault has com- 
monly been attributed to muscular weakness or 
paresis, and has been usually called asthe- 
nopia, in keeping with this idea of paresis. If 
the left eye deviated above its mate, this theory 
assumed that the inferior muscle of that eye was 
insufficient in strength to hold it down. If it 
deviated inward, the outer muscle was said to be 
too weak ; if outward, the inner muscle was too 
weak. This reasoning naturally assumes that to 
maintain a balance there is a constant conten- 
tion in the various eye muscles, and whenever 
a muscle becomes weaker than its fellow there 
will be a deviation in the direction of the stronger 
one. That this cannot be true is evident from 

115 



1 16 THE EYE MIND ENERGY AND MA TTER 

the fact that the internal rectus muscle is known 
to have generally five or six times the strength 
of its opposite, the external rectus ; and if it were 
a relative difference in strength of the muscles 
that caused the eyes to deviate, all eyes having 
muscles of such comparative strength would be 
constantly turned in toward each other. This 
shows that it cannot be a question as to the rela- 
tive strength of the muscles. 

The visual axes of normal eyes should, under 
physiological relaxation of all the muscles, be in 
a nearly parallel plane for an infinite distance; 
although some muscle might be weak, an eye 
would present perfect balance with absolute re- 
laxation of the opposite muscle. 

An exception may be made in cases of paraly- 
sis, which cannot be determined by a relative 
position of the optic axes alone, but by indi- 
vidual movements of one eye. 

The almost universal deviation of the eyes of 
the dead, the blind, the new-born babe; of those 
who have been rendered unconscious by the use 
of anaesthetics, alcohol, or narcotic poisons; and 
of those who are in a state of suspended anima- 
tion from other causes, such as fainting, apo- 
plexy, or coma, is due to a suspension of 
innervation, more or less complete, during which 
the eyes fall into those positions in which the 



EXOPHORIA 117 

anatomical length of the muscles would naturally 
hold them. Deviations under the above condi- 
tions are certainly not due to paresis or muscular 
weakness. True, we do have weak muscles, but 
they are frequently on the side of the eye oppo- 
site to that in which the theory of muscular 
asthenopia would fix them. As in exophoria, 
when the deviation of an eye is due to a short 
external muscle, tending to draw the eye out- 
ward, it is the external muscle which is really 
insufficient, asthenopic, or undeveloped, for 
never has it had any normal action. It has 
always been drawn upon and stretched by the 
opposite muscle, in the effort of the latter to 
pull the eyes into line. In such cases, gymnastic 
exercise of the muscles in which there is a mani- 
fest deviation, with prisms base out, will some- 
times restore the balance, but it does so by mak- 
ing the defect latent again. It does its work by 
increasing the excessive innervation to a hiding 
standard again. For the muscle that we increase 
in strength by gymnastic exercise is the over- 
developed one. This exercise simply stretches 
the short muscle more, and increases the exces- 
sive innervation in the strong one. The results of 
these gymnastics on the nervous system are the 
opposite of what we seek to obtain. Such exer- 
cise will often restore a balance of the optic axes. 



1 18 THE EYE MIND ENERGY AND MA TTER 

but it does so at the expense of the nerve- 
centers. 

But in that class of cases where there is a 
manifest deviation of the optic axes, due to 
spasm, which usually turns the eye in a direc- 
tion opposite the short muscle, as in esophoria, 
gymnastic exercise will bring some relief, for it 
represses in a small measure the brain-strain, as 
it brings the eyes back into line. This relief is 
frequently increased by crossing the line of bal- 
ance and forcing the esophoric eye in the opposite 
direction to a considerable extent by repression. 

There is always a physical comfort in seeing 
easily, but the chief disturbances arising from 
eye-strains are not local; they do not always 
affect the vision. 

In exophoria the nerve-centers have wearied 
of holding the eyes in place and begin to sus- 
pend their labor. There is an effort of the 
nerve-centers to rest from an overtaxed condi- 
tion, and we should always aid them as much as 
possible in this effort. This is done with prisms 
base in, the same as in treating the spasm in 
esophoria. If physical conditions indicate it, 
and are improved by repression, we over-correct 
the manifest defect in exophoria, thus assisting 
the nerve-centers in getting rid of their burden of 
work. 



EXOPHORIA 119 

By this repression for a few weeks or even 
months, we cannot expect to suspend entirely an 
abnormal nerve-impulse that has required many 
years to attain its intensity. We should reason- 
ably expect time to be necessary to break down 
nerve-impulses that have been established since 
birth. 

The more manifest a muscular defect is, the 
less will be the strain and disturbance of the 
nerve-centers, for this form has periods of rest ; 
but no periods of rest ever come, even during 
sleep, to nerve-centers that are sustaining abso- 
lutely latent eye-strain. The highest state of 
nervous disturbance exists where the defects are 
absolutely latent, or their manifestation reversed. 

An eye, to accommodate itself to a prism, 
always turns towards its apex. For this reason, 
in seeking to relieve a strain, we should always 
point the apex toward the short muscle. 

The power of the eyes to fuse is much higher 
at the near or reading point than at a distance. 
It is also emphasized by bright light, by plurality 
of objects, non-similarity of shape, variety of 
color, and irregularity of arrangement. A plain 
blank surface offers no stimulus for fusion, a 
single point the least. Therefore, students and 
other workers at the near point, who are the 



1 20 THE EYE MIND ENERGY AND MA TETR 

greatest sufferers from eye-strain, are capable of 
the greatest relief, because they can utilize the 
highest repression at the near point. 

As cases differ more or less from each other, 
and each case requires special tests, especially in 
esophoria and exophoria, both being treated the 
same, a single illustration will suffice. First, the 
ciliary spasm is set at rest by, say, a plus three- 
dioptre lens, which permits the patient to see 
clearly at his reading or working distance, but 
no farther, all distant objects being fogged. To 
this we add three degrees of prism base in before 
each eye, which relieves the converging strain to 
the extent of six degrees. This prism stimulates 
a relaxation of the ciliary and admits of clear 
vision at a little further distance than the plus 
three-dioptre glasses would admit of alone. This 
relative relaxation of internal recti and ciliary 
strain varies considerably, and must be worked 
out by careful clinical tests. 

In persons suffering from extreme nervous 
trouble, who could read without glasses, though 
it caused them great nervous distress, we have 
frequently used five or six dioptres of plus 
lens, with twelve degrees of prism base in for 
reading, and although great relief is experienced 
for a time, in a little while even this amount of 
prism has proved insufficient. When such a case 



EXOPHORIA lai 

arrives at a point where the patient can fuse for 
twenty degrees or more of prism base in at an 
infinite distance, we resort to a complete tenot- 
omy or relaxation of one of the external rectus 
muscles, which results in greater relief than the 
prisms afforded. If further repression and con- 
servation of energy are necessary we continue to 
resort to this same method until we find a tenot- 
omy necessary on the opposite eye. This may 
seem radical to the novice, but there are cases in 
which the great and only danger is in leaving 
these strains uncorrected. 

The perfect and delicate correlated action of 
the various muscles of the eye has been assumed 
by some to be a delicacy of mechanical balance 
of the various muscles, but this is seldom if ever 
true. In all cases, the balance is maintained by 
innervation which is the outgrowth of a stimulus 
in the nerve-centers for perfect vision. In such 
cases, the nerve-impulses have continued so long 
in the performance of their various duties that 
they have become fixed impulses and are virtu- 
ally interlocked with each other. 

By the novice the criticism would perhaps be 
made that such radical repression would break 
down the accommodation. It does break down 
a perfect but laborious accommodation that 
always exists where there is a high degree of 



1 2 2 THE EYE MIND ENERGY AND MA TTER 

strain, which is making a constant and extrava- 
gant call on the nerve-centers, and often proves 
very injurious to health. This is what it was 
always our purpose to do with mydriatics. A 
new and perfect accommodation is soon estab- 
lished, under better conditions and more favorable 
to health. 



CHAPTER XVI 

HYPERPHORIA, CATAPHORIA, AND CYCLOPHORIA 

Defects are more universally latent in the su- 
perior and inferior than in the external and inter- 
nal ocular muscles, for the latter in the perform- 
ance of their various functions are alternately 
converging and diverging the optic axes, while 
the superior and inferior have very little relative 
change, upward or downward. Whatever position 
they assume, the optic axes deviate very little rela- 
tively from a horizontal plane ; consequently the 
impulses to the superior and inferior muscles be- 
come more obstinately fixed, and defects in these 
muscles are less likely to manifest themselves. 

In hyperphoria, where one eye tends above its 
fellow, it may be due to a spasm or to a short- 
ness of a muscle — the all-important point to 
decide. Spasm plays such an exceedingly impor- 
tant part in a majority of the cases of hyper- 
phoria, cataphoria, and cyclophoria that in our 
endeavors to correct these conditions we should 
first give exhaustive attention to the abatement 
of latent ciliary spasm and the strains existing in 
esophoria and exophoria; for it is the lateral 

123 



1 24 THE EYE MIND ENERGY AND MA TTER 

strains that are very frequently the cause of in- 
ducing functional hypophoria, cataphoria, and 
cyclophoria, and when we have subjugated the 
strains of hypermetropia and those in the lateral 
muscles, the former disturbances disappear with- 
out special attention. 

Hyperphoria and cataphoria very frequently, 
and cyclophoria nearly always, take their origin 
as follows: With a wide pupillary distance, 
where the external muscles are very short, great 
strain is necessary to converge the eyes for the 
near point, reading, etc. The wider the pupil- 
lary distance the greater the strain and the con- 
verging angle will be. By tilting the head to 
one side the lateral angle can be narrowed con- 
siderably, even a fourth of an inch or more, but 
this necessitates one eye looking a little higher 
and the other a little lower. It would also in- 
volve a screw-like motion of both eyes, through 
the action of the oblique muscles, so that fusion 
may take place. The continuance of this posi- 
tion of the head for relief eventually results in 
the nerve-impulses to the superior, inferior, and 
oblique muscles becoming constant, and when 
such a case is examined with the head in an 
erect position one eye is found to tend higher or 
lower than the other, and also to have a tempo- 
rarily fixed rotation — cyclophoria. 



HYPERPHORIA, CA TAPHORIA, ETC. 125 

Seat at twenty feet from a light a person who 
has, say, five degrees of exophoria, or create it 
artificially. When diplopia is created, with a 
prism base down, the two lights apparently seen 
indicate the five degrees of exophoria, but by 
tilting the head to one side a few degrees one of 
the lights appears directly over the other. The 
tilting of the head has narrowed the angle be- 
tween the eyes and assisted in overcoming the 
defect. Persons subject to great strain in con- 
verging the eyes get partial relief by tilting the 
head ; but the constant carrying of the head in 
this position fixes the eyes on different levels, as 
well as the rotation of the eye, and we have 
functional hyperphoria or cataphoria and cyclo- 
phoria. 

For several years we have been careful to pro- 
ceed along these lines in the treatment of hyper- 
phoria, cataphoria, and cyclophoria, and have 
been amply rewarded. 

These conditions are sometimes due to short 
muscles, but such cases are in so small a minor- 
ity that before proceeding to correct them as 
short muscles, every effort should be exhausted 
in trying to eliminate them as functional dis- 
turbances. 



CHAPTER XVII 

AMETROPIA 

In the anatomical state of rest there is always 
a deficiency of refraction, varying in different 
individuals. The nerve-centers energize the 
ciliary muscle, thereby increasing the curvatures 
of the crystalline lens. 

First, when the amount of energy furnished is 
insufficient to increase the refraction to the point 
of perfect vision, say one dioptre, dim vision is 
the result, and a one-dioptre lens is required to 
correct it. This is manifest hypermetropia. 

Second, a case in which the nerve force in- 
creases the curvatures of the crystalline lens suffi- 
ciently to induce perfect vision, but this innerva- 
tion is laborious and unfixed, being quite willing 
to suspend, say one dioptre, with a correcting 
lens, which' induces equally good vision under 
less labor to the nerve-centers. This has also 
been called manifest hypermetropia, but in some 
way should be differentiated from the first ex- 
ample, preferably by calling it *' functional'* 
manifest, because the function of perfect vision 
is exercised in such cases. 

126 



AMETROPIA 127 

Third, the nerve-centers send sufficient energy 
to the ciliary to induce perfect vision, and with 
such vigor that the nerve-impulses become tonic, 
so perfectly fixed that they do not suspend even 
during the hours of sleep, and in some cases so 
impregnable that mydriatics fail to break them 
down. This is emmetropia. 

Fourth, when the nerve-centers over-energize 
from over-use of near vision, or any cause, they 
take on a tonic excitation, send too much energy 
to the ciliary muscle, increasing the refraction to 
a point beyond emmetropia, say one dioptre. 
This is functional jnyopiuy a continuance and 
increase of which so disturb the nutritional pro- 
cesses in various parts of the eye that there is an 
increase in the vitreous body and aqueous humor 
to such an extent that the eyeball is enlarged by 
being elongated. Its increase in size is in the 
antero-posterior direction, because the rectus and 
oblique muscles bind it equatorially, preventing 
dilation in this direction. This is anatomical 
myopia 

Fifth, most cases of anatomical myopia are 
mixed with functional myopia, especially in their 
earlier histories. In such cases, if no glasses or 
an under-correction be worn, the stimulus for 
more perfect vision may partly or completely 
suspend the ciliary innervation, on the principle 



) 



128 THE EYE MIND ENERGY AND MA TTER 

of repression, which if resorted to at the reading 
or near point will frequently cure functional 
myopia. 

In a nomad, who is reared out of doors, who 
follows such pursuits that his vision is mostly 
used at twenty feet and greater distances, the 
nerve-impulses to the ciliary muscle become estab- 
lished so that the easiest vision is for the far 
point, and in many years of such use these im- 
pulses become more or less fixed; while the 
child of a higher civilization spends its life within 
doors, amuses itself with toys, picture books, 
kindergarten amusements, and learning to read. 
We will assume that such a child generally holds 
its book or toy ten inches from the eyes, in which 
case the crystalline lens requires a much greater 
convexity, or higher state of refraction, to bring 
about perfect vision ; and this is effected by an 
increase in the ciliary nerve-impulse which con- 
tracts the ciliary muscle. Through long-con- 
tinued use, this excessive impulse becomes 
comparatively fixed, and in some instances refuses 
to suspend itself sufficiently to bring about dis- 
tant vision again, and myopia has set in. The 
regular work of the student and those following 
other pursuits which require the use of the eye 
at the near point, tends to perpetuate this disease 
and make it progressive. 



AMETROPIA 129 

When the eye is emmetropic and the condi- 
tions of health are desirable, there is no reason 
for interfering with the ocular apparatus. But 
if health is seriously disturbed, we can conserve 
energy and allay brain-irritation by ** repressing** 
those nerve-strains that are sustaining the em- 
metropic condition, until we arrive at a new cor- 
relation which requires much less energy to 
sustain it. 

The repression of myopia is a difficult matter 
unless the patient is considerable of a reader. 
Then high repression at the near point can be 
taken advantage of. On account of the relation 
existing between the ciliary muscle and the in- 
terni, it is necessary to use as much prism base 
in as can be fused for at the reading point, in 
conjunction with plus or suitably weak minus 
lenses, according to the severity of the case. 
The relaxation of the interni and that of the 
ciliary simultaneously encourage and assist each 
other in suspending the excessive nerve-impulse. 
To get sufficient relaxation of the interni it is 
frequently necessary to tenotomize one or both 
of the external rectus muscles. 

So great is the suspension under repression at 
the near point that a myope of three dioptres or 
more will be able to read comfortably at nine or 



I30 THE EYE MIND ENERGY AND MA TTER 

ten inches with, say, plus three-dioptre glasses 
combined with twenty to thirty degrees of prism 
base in. The variations between prism and 
sphere will have to be determined clinically in 
each individual case. 

If the acuity of vision of a myope be taken 
without glasses and he then be set to reading for 
fifteen minutes or more in repression glasses, on 
removing them it will be observed that the acuity 
of vision is momentarily improved. It requires 
patience and persistence to arrive at permanent 
good results. 

Astigmatism, or that condition in which the 
refraction of the eye is different in various 
meridians, disappears after correction of muscu- 
lar strain, showing that it is due to irregular 
tension in the extrinsic ocular muscles, which 
distort the cornea by their irregular pull. 



Thus, in a generalized way, we have set down 
the experiences of a third of a century, which 
are but a suggestion of an exhaustless subject, 
now in its beginning. Only the all-wise, self-suf- 
ficient man is ready to quit, feeling that he has 
finished. It is not such that make up the king- 
dom of heaven. It is in the renaissance that all 
men are great. Life is superb when, as little 



AMETROPIA 131 

children, we each day receive on the light wings 
of morning, in the sweet breath of dawn, some 
welcome surprise from the infinite storehouse of 
God. 



